During the actual design process, there are steps taken that are fundamental to the way databases are created.  It is important to ensure that we get stuff right early on, since it is like building a house: this is the foundation, if we get it wrong, continuing to build the house is going to end up in disaster!  A disaster that will cause delays and may require a complete start-over.

A few strategic questions are asked early on to get us pointed in the right direction.  We approach all projects in this manner: the customer probably has no idea of what they require, so it’s our job to ask questions and make suggestions that will assist the customer to "think outside the box", but if we produce something that’s wrong, they’ll know that!

  1. We Determine the purpose of your database   Knowing the purpose will help us decide which facts you want the database to store.

  2. We Determine the tables you will need   When we have a clear purpose for your database, we can divide your information into separate subjects, such as "Employees" or "Orders." Each subject will be a table in your database.

  3. We Determine the fields you will need   Firstly, you decide what information you want to keep on each entity (Employee, Customer, Product). Each category of information in a table is called a field and is displayed as a column when you browse the table in spreadsheet-like views. For example, one field in an Employee table could be Last Name; another could be Hire Date.

  4. We Determine the Relationships   We look at each table and decide how the data in one table is related to the data in other tables. We add fields to tables or create new tables to clarify the relationships, as necessary.

  5. We Refine our Design   We analyze our design for errors. Create the tables and add a few records of sample data. We see if we can get the results you want from our tables. We make adjustments to the design as needed.

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