Fundamentals of Business advanced

Information Technologies

ENTITY -RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAMS

 Introduction
The integration of advanced information technologies into business operations is
crucial for staying competitive in today's fast-paced and digital business
environment.

• By mastering and applying these technologies, businesses can use the power of
advanced information technologies to optimize operations, improve decision-
making, and gain a competitive edge in the modern business landscape.
Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)

An Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is a type of diagram that lets you see how
different entities (e.g. people, customers, or other objects) relate to each other in
an application or a database.
• They are created when a new system is being designed so that the
development team can understand how to structure the database. They can also
be created on an existing system to help the team understand how the system
works and to find and resolve any issues.
• Entity Relationship Diagrams use a specific set of symbols, such as shapes and
arrows, to depict the system and database.
An example of an ERD
Components of an ERD
An Entity Relationship Diagram is made up of many different components:
 Entity
 Relationship
 Attribute
Entity
An entity is something that can have data stored about it. It can be a physical object
(e.g. car, person), a concept (e.g. address) or an event (e.g. student enrolment in a
course). They represent nouns.
• They are usually represented as rectangles on an ERD with the entity name inside
the rectangle.
• An entity can also be a strong entity or a weak entity. What’s the difference?
• A strong entity has an identifier (a primary key) and does not depend on any
other entities for it to exist. For example, a student may be a strong entity, as it
can have a primary key and does not depend on any other entities for it to exist.
• A weak entity is one that depends on a strong entity for existence. This means it
has a foreign key to another entity. For example, an enrolment of a student may be
a weak entity, as an enrolment cannot exist without a student.
Relationship
A relationship in an ERD defines how two entities are related to each other. They
can be derived from verbs, when speaking about a database or a set of entities.
Relationships in ERDs are represented as lines between two entities, and often have
a label on the line to further describe the relationship (such as “enrols”, “registers”,
“completes”).
There are several types of relationships that are represented on an ERD:
 One to one: One record of an entity is directly related to another record of an
entity
 One to many: One record of an entity is related to one or more records of
another entity.
 Many to many: Many records of one entity can be related to many records of another
entity.
Attribute
An attribute is a property of an entity or something that can be used to describe an entity. They are
often represented as ovals, or as entries inside an entity.
There are several different types of attributes represented on an ERD:
 Simple: an attribute that cannot be split into other attributes, such as a first name.
 Composite: an attribute that can be split into other attributes, such as name being split into first,
middle, and last name.
 Derived: an attribute that is calculated or determined from another attribute, such as the age of
record being calculated from the created date.

An attribute can also be single-value or multi-value:

 Single-value: an attribute that is only captured once,
 Multi-Value: an attribute that can be captured more than once for an entity, such as multiple
phone numbers.
What is Cardinality?
Cardinality represents the number of instances of an entity that exist
in a relationship between two entities. This is often expressed as a
number but could also be a symbol, depending on the style of
diagram used.
Common cardinality values are zero, one, or many.
Natural Language
When we are creating an ERD we often have an idea of what we want to capture.
This can usually be expressed in words, or using “natural language”.
Some examples are:
 “Record students, courses they enroll in, and teachers who teach the course”
 “Capture the customer orders, customer details, and where the orders are being
sent”
 “Capture patient data and the operations they had”
These sentences include a few different types of words, which can be used as a
starting point for an ERD. They are represented in a few different ways:
 Noun: a “thing”, such as a student or customer. Represented as an entity.
 Verb: an action, such as enroll or send. Represented as a relationship between
two entities.
 Adjective: a describing word, such as residential or advanced. Represented as
an attribute on an entity.
This can help you translate a description of what you need to diagram into an
actual diagram.
Symbols and notations
When creating an ERD, it can be simple to create boxes and
lines between them. But, like many things in software
development, there are a few different methods and
standards that are available.
For ERDs, there are several notation standards, which define
the symbols used.
Chen
Here is an example of the symbols used with the Chen notation style.
Here is an example ERD using Chen notation:
Crow’s Foot
Here is an example of the symbols used with the Crow’s foot notation style. It is called “crow’s
foot’’ as the symbol for a many relationship looks like the foot of a crow with its three prongs.
Here is an example ERD using Crow’s Foot notation:
Bachman
Here is an example of the symbols used with the Bachman notation style.
Here is an example ERD using Bachman notation:
IDEF1X
Here is an example of the symbols used with the IDEF1X notation style.
Here is an example ERD using IDEF1X notation:
Barker
Here is an example of the symbols used with the Barker notation style.
Here is an example ERD using Bachman notation:
Conceptual, logical, physical

An Entity Relationship Diagram can be drawn at three different levels:

conceptual, logical, or physical.
Each of these levels has a different level of detail and are used for a
different purpose.
Let us see some examples.
Conceptual Data Model
The conceptual data model shows the business objects that exist in the system and
how they relate to each other.
• It defines the entities that exist, which are not necessarily tables. Thinking of
tables is too detailed for this type of data model.
• An example of a conceptual data model is shown here. It shows students,
courses, and how they relate.
Logical Data Model
A logical model is a more detailed version of a conceptual data model. Attributes
are added to each entity, and further entities can be added that represent areas to
capture data in the system.
Here is an example of the student and course data model created as a logical data
model.
Physical Data Model
The physical data model is the most detailed data model in this process. It defines a set of tables and columns
and how they relate to each other. It includes primary and foreign keys, as well as the data types for each
column.
These diagrams can be created manually in a data modelling tool. They are also often generated by an IDE
from an existing database.
Here’s an example of the student and course physical data model.
This table outlines the differences between a conceptual, logical, and physical
model:

Feature Conceptual Logical Physical

Entity Yes Yes Yes
Relationship Yes Yes Yes
Attribute Yes Yes
Attribute
Yes
Types
Keys Yes
How to Create an Entity Relationship Diagram
The process to create an ERD is:
1. Write a sentence or two about what you are storing data about
2. List what you are storing data about – the nouns/objects
3. List the information you want to store for each object
4. Describe the relationships between each object
5. Draw the diagram

• The steps listed here are brief, but the process can take some time, depending on
how familiar you are with the system and how experienced you are with creating
Entity Relationship Diagrams.
Tools to use
What tool should you use to create a data model or an Entity Relationship
Diagram?
There are a lot of applications available to help you create one.
Examples
• LucidChart – it is simple to use and web-based
• Microsoft Visio
• SQL Designer
• Analyse SI
• DBDesigner 4
• ModelRight
Conclusion
An Entity Relationship Diagram is a great tool to help you define,
understand, and communicate the requirements of a system. It can be
modelled at a high level (conceptual data model), at detailed level
(physical data model) or at a level in between (logical data model).

There is a range of modelling notations or types of symbols which

define how entities, attributes, and relationships are captured.
If you want to get started with creating an ERD for your system,
consider drawing one on paper, or use one of the many tools available.