1. A method, implemented at a computer system that includes one or more processors, for maintaining information regarding multiple instances of an activity, each instance having an active condition in which information about the instance is to be modified or an inactive condition in which information about the instance is not to be modified, the method comprising: the computer system creating a record in a first database table for each of the multiple instances in the active condition, each record containing a field for each of a plurality of data types, one or more of the fields in each active instance record having a value indicative of the active condition; the computer system assigning, for records of the multiple instances in the inactive condition, values to the one or more fields indicative of the inactive condition; the computer system deleting from the first table records of instances having values in the one or more fields indicative of the inactive condition thereby reducing a size of the first database table to prevent degradation of response times when database users access the records for the instances in the active condition; and the computer system creating, for records deleted from the first table, a corresponding record in a second database table.