a. Create the ERD without associative entities
1. Using the Business Problem Description, create an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) to represent the data requirements of the business. Use Microsoft Visio to create this ERD.
2. Each entity must be named and the identifier(s) (primary key) listed.
3. Attributes other than the identifiers may be included.
b. Create the ERD with associative entities
1. Include in the ERD created in a above, the necessary associative entities and supply identifiers for these entities.
2. Attributes other than the identifiers may also be included in these associative entities.
Tips on Creating Project Part 1 ERD: Instead of thinking of it as one big problem, think of it as several very small problems! (When we ask our minds to try to consider too many different concepts at the same time, most of us experience at least some overload!) One technique to try involves modeling “views” of the data. To use this technique:
1. Consider each paragraph or line in the problem one at a time. Carefully analyze just the one line/paragraph for any information that should be used in the ERD.
2. Then draw the ERD for that one piece of the problem. It may be very small–that is OK.
3. Move to the next paragraph/line and analyze it. Forget about the previous line–just concentrate on this one. Draw the ERD for that paragraph/line.
4. Continue through the problem–analyzing each piece for information and drawing the ERD for that information. When you are finished, you should have a number of small ERD’s–some may only be an entity with some attributes or maybe two entities that are related, but have no attributes specified.
5. Combine all the little ERD’s into one bigger one. If you have several ERDs that refer to Employee, for example, combine them all using one entity for Employee. Be sure to transfer all information from the little ERDs to the large one (attributes, identifiers, cardinality, etc.) By focusing on only one small portion of the problem at a time, you will find the overall problem much easier to solve and you should find that you have not overlooked or forgotten any detail.
3. Clearly indicate all cardinalities and modalities on the ERD.
To Submit:
1. Using your word processor, copy and paste the Visio diagram for both ERDs (with and without associative entities) into a new word processing document.
2. Add a title page to this document with your team names and semester.
3. Document any assumptions in a third page.
4. Name the file as: YourGroupName_ProjectPart1
5. Submit by due date.
