ERD Fundamentals

Overview

PhixFlow Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs) define the logical structure of the data in your application. "Entities" represent the things in the world that you want to represent as data.

The ERD Window Layout

Here is a simplified view of the ERD editorwindow:

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1. The Toolbar toolbar provides ERD specific options, such as displaying the available data tables that  that you can be added add to your ERD and creating a new screen for your data.
2. The Repository browser, can list all of the available tables in your application and any associated packages. Click Tables from the toolbar to display all available tables in this area. 
3. The Canvas area is where the ERD is configured. Tables can be added by:
4. Dragging a Table from the toolbar onto the canvas. This creates a new table.
Clicking Tables from the toolbar and dragging a  
5. On the toolbar, click

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    to list all available tables in the repository pane on the right. 
6. The main part of the window is the canvas, where you create the ERD.
   • To add a new table, from the toolbar, drag the 

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     _table _table nopanel true

      icon onto the canvas.
   • To add an existing table, on the toolbar, click 

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     . PhixFlow lists the available tables in the repository. Drag a table from the repository onto the canvas.
   Adds an existing table.Excel and CSV documents can be dragged directly
   • To add an Excel or CSV spreadsheet, drag it onto the canvas
   and will be imported automatically, which creates
   • . PhixFlow imports the spreadsheet and uses it to create a new table.
7. The Tables and Relationships, are displayed on the canvas. A Table shows canvas shows the tables and the relationships between them.
   • A table is represented as a box, containing a list of all of the attributes it contains and their data type.
   • A
   Relationship between two tables is displayed as a
   • line connecting tables represents the relationship between them. The line connects the primary key of one table to a foreign key
   of
   • in a
   second table. This is discussed in more detail in 
   • different table; see Relationship.

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Overview

PhixFlow Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs) define the logical structure of the data in your application. "Entities" represent the things in the world that you want to represent as data.

ERD Example

The following example shows an ERD for a school. Here the school has entities: departments, teachers, students, classrooms and so on. All these entities are represented as tables and the lines connecting them show their relationships to one another. We can see from this diagram that a School Department has many Class Rooms and Teachers. This example is covered in detail in Understanding ERDs.

Creating an ERD

1. Click the ERD link on On your application's home page, click the ERD link to list the existing ERDs.
2. This lists all existing ERD diagrams and provides an Add button for creating new ERDs.

Open Existing ERD

1. Click the ERD link on
2. Click the 

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   button to create a new ERD.

Opening an ERD

1.  On your application's home page.This lists all existing ERD diagrams, click the ERD link to list the existing ERDs.
2. Double-click any item ERD to open it.

Already Have Data?

If you have data that you wish to import into PhixFlow, such as a database or csv, you will need to CSV file, use an Analysis Model analysis model to import it. See Importing Data and Importing Data Through an API for more detail.Analysis Models will allow you to configure Configure connectors to access your existing data sources and store the data as tables in PhixFlow's own database. see Importing Data and Importing Data Through an API.

You can also use an analysis model to set up bulk processes to manipulate large volumes of data before it is presented to your users; see Analysis Models for Batch Processing Data.

What's Next?

Understanding ERDs covers ERDs in more depth to help you design your own ERDs and views to display your data.