Well, I just read Tony's post in Jon's sticky at the top of this forum...I am definitely a beginner, but I already knew that!
So, feeling a bit lost and frustrated here. I am a Lone Ranger on developing several databases for our plant. I took a few intro classes about 10 years ago, and own a couple of books, and have access to you all! One of the books I am trying to understand is Database Systems: Design, Implementation and Management, by Coronel, Morris and Rob, 9th ed.
With the current database I am working on, it's like an ordering program, but with different needs for us. I am close to getting a working application, but am reviewing some of the data, relationships and such.
The approach I normally take when creating something in Excel or Access is to start building it as I think about what I might want or need. (Obviously this leads to problems, which is the leaky boat I find myself in. I want this application to work well, and I want to develop it with the best techniques. So, I found myself reviewing our company’s business rules, descriptions of operations and such to make sure that I have all the possible entities, attributes, relationships, etc. needed. Then, I found that an ERD would very handy, apart from the Relationships window in Access. I’ve tried ArgoUML, but found it not that user friendly and the help is limited.
I am attempting to use Excel to help me diagram this out and uncover possible errors or missing data. I would like to get to the next level of developer, but this is definitely taxing!
What methods do you use to go about the design phase? I need to become more thorough in this phase before I open Access.
Thanks!
So, feeling a bit lost and frustrated here. I am a Lone Ranger on developing several databases for our plant. I took a few intro classes about 10 years ago, and own a couple of books, and have access to you all! One of the books I am trying to understand is Database Systems: Design, Implementation and Management, by Coronel, Morris and Rob, 9th ed.
With the current database I am working on, it's like an ordering program, but with different needs for us. I am close to getting a working application, but am reviewing some of the data, relationships and such.
The approach I normally take when creating something in Excel or Access is to start building it as I think about what I might want or need. (Obviously this leads to problems, which is the leaky boat I find myself in. I want this application to work well, and I want to develop it with the best techniques. So, I found myself reviewing our company’s business rules, descriptions of operations and such to make sure that I have all the possible entities, attributes, relationships, etc. needed. Then, I found that an ERD would very handy, apart from the Relationships window in Access. I’ve tried ArgoUML, but found it not that user friendly and the help is limited.
I am attempting to use Excel to help me diagram this out and uncover possible errors or missing data. I would like to get to the next level of developer, but this is definitely taxing!
What methods do you use to go about the design phase? I need to become more thorough in this phase before I open Access.
Thanks!