Is Your Data Flatlined or In a Relationship

Problem: You store the same information in several places, such as: Customer Names, Product Information, Order Information and Employee Information.

When you update these items, it is time consuming to find all of the places they occur and type in the same information over and over.  Will you be completely sure that all copies are the same?  Is there a risk of deleting important data, then finding that there were no backup copies?

Solution: A properly designed relational database stores each item in only one table, pointing to that table from other tables of related information. Information can be returned from sets of related tables as though they were all stored as one table.

Properly planned cascade updates and deletes can keep the database from accumulating obsolete or misleading data.

Problem: Your Data displays improbable or implausible information, such as: Orders for products that do not exist, Orders for customers that do not exist or Employees hired before they were born.

Solution: A carefully constructed relational database includes data validation and business rules for verifying data, so that mistyped or inconsistent entries are caught before they are saved in your database.

The same system can also flag entries for special attention; for example, a customer who orders from a new product category or one who waits longer than usual to re-order!

Types of Databases:

• Historical Databases track and explain past events. A data warehouse holds the history ranging back five, ten or more years! 
• Analytical Databases extract and analyze data statistically in order to explain and inform. They hold summarized, aggregated data describing not only the current conditions, but also recent and even remote history. 
• Operational Databases describe the current state of affairs in a company. They support daily operations and processes of business transactions. An Operational Database is constantly being updated. 

Case Study: Company "A"

Company "A" had the "I entered the data but now I can't find it" and "All the data somehow got deleted" syndrome, all to common to many businesses today.

The solution was to completely re-design the database in such a manner that information retrieval was radically simplified and deleted data was a thing of the past. User-friendly data entry screens and password-protected deletions solved this dilemma.

Case Study: Company "B"

Company "B" had information scattered everywhere within the company. Many of the employees duplicated data entry work already performed by someone else in the company. Information was kept in spreadsheets instead of a centralized relational database. Information reporting was a nightmare and took days to gather information from around the company to assemble a simple report.

The solution was to create and implement a centralized company wide database. Data in spreadsheets was re-worked and imported into the database. Redundant data entry came to a complete halt. Information reporting was reduced to minutes instead of days.

If your company experiences situations like the ones in this article it's past time to get a handle on the problem before your company is flat lined.

"Many people can write programs; yet,
it's the rare programmer
who can write the program the customer needs to have."