User manual

Chapter 3
Creating databases
This chapter explains the basics of how to:
1 plan a database
1 define and modify fields
1 define tables
1 create layouts
1 work with fields, objects, and parts on a layout
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Planning a database
A well-designed database promotes consistent data entry and retrieval, and reduces the existence
of duplicate data among the database tables. Relational database tables work together to ensure
that the correct data is available when you need it. It’s a good idea to plan a database on paper first.
Follow these general steps to plan a database:
1. Determine the purpose for your database, or the problem you want to solve. For example, “to
keep a list of my customers,” “to manage my inventory,” or “to grade my students.”
If other people will use the database, be sure to talk with them about the data they will need.
2. Consider the information you will store in your database. Typically, information falls into broad
categories. Accurately identifying these categories is critical to designing an efficient database,
because you will store different types and amounts of data in each category. For example, a
database intended to track sales has categories such as “customers,” “products,” and
“invoices.” A database that records student grades has categories such as “students,”
“classes,” and “assignments.”
3. After you’ve determined the broad categories, consider how these categories are related. This
can be done by writing simple sentences that describe how the categories interact, such as,
“customers order products” and “invoices record customers’ orders.” Each of these pairs
suggests a relationship between the data in one category and the data in the other category.