Diagram to Tables!

[Tech]

This is slightly odd but was hoping someone could help me identify the key table components and fields here

basically its a process of an existing system. they store data in various locations on the file system. Now want to try and move it all to DB in a structured way.

i think ive identified some of the tables and fields but still very wary. id hope someone could give me a helping hand.

 

[GinaWhipp]

Okay, well that told me nothing... What is the Business this applied to? What is it you wan the database to accomplish? Do you have any tables set up? If yes, what are they?

 

[Tech]

thankyou fellow MVP

well its a long explanation. but basically they have a big system. they are currently processing messages sent from a source. The details are actually stored on disk in a file system - a bad file system. They want to get away from that and use a structured DB instead.

I was only able to really identify 3 tables:

BatchNumber (ID, BatchNumber)
Message (ID, XMLFile, XMLFilename, BatchNumber (FK), UniqueSuffix, Attempts)
SentToDevice (ID, MessageID (FK))

it is complicated so I do apologise for the lack of explanation.

so they recieve a zip file. in it contains a structure leading to an XML file. This xml file is then parsed through some logic.
based upon that, the file is moved or copied to various places depending upon the logic. When they are moved or copied, again depending upon the logic, they are placed into another type of awful directory structure.

Eventually at some stage, the processed XML files from various directory structures are processed and sent to devices (placed into dispatcherOutgoing or SentToDevice folders)

thats just scratching the surface

 

[GinaWhipp]

Yeah ER Diagrams...

Okay well based on your explanation not sure you need more than that. It does sound like you are going to need a bumch of True/False fields. Oh and now that I think about a Junction table or two to connect Messages to Batches. When I think about how to structure things like this I try to simplify as much as possible and it makes it easier to put together a Data Model, ie...

Messages come in (need a table for that)
Messages go out to various locations (need a check box or two or three for that)
Messages go out in batches (need a table to store batch ID's, date of batch, etc...)