Example ERD

The following example shows an ERD for a school. Each box represents a different table.

Key Concepts

Term	Means	School Example
Table	A table represents a thing or entity. The table name is displayed in the blue area. Choose a name that reflects the thing your table represents.	Tables: School Department Class Room Teacher Course Student
Attributes	The table has a list of attributes. If you display the table data in a grid, the attributes are the column headers. They name what the data is, and sets the type (date, integer, string etc.) and any format details.	Student table has attributes: StudentID Student Name Student Address Intake Year
Primary key	PhixFlow automatically generates an attribute that is the unique identifier, UID. This is the table's primary key. The records for this attribute will all have a unique value. You may want to rename UID to something more descriptive, although it's a good idea to include ID in the name. Primary keys are indicated using a green key icon. We recommend that a primary key attribute is an integer, because PhixFlow can automatically generate a unique integer value for each new data record.	Primary keys in different tables: DepartmentID ClassRoomID TeacherID
Relationship	You can create a relationship between the primary key in one table, to an attribute in another table.  On the diagram the relationship is shown as an arrow from a primary key to an attribute in another table. Relationships always point from a primary key to a non-primary attribute. When you are designing screens, you can create views to display attributes from a table AND from other, related tables. Between two tables with multiple relationships, each connection must have a unique name.	By convention, set the name of a relationship an action (verb) that follows the left-right flow of the diagram. a department→ has→ many teachers a teacher → runs→ several courses classroom → is ued by→ many courses
Foreign key	Relationships show that the data in a primary key in one table also appears in an attribute in another table. The attribute may have a different name, but it must represent the same data. This attribute is a foreign key.  Foreign keys are indicated using a grid icon. When you create a relationship in an ERD, PhixFlow automatically sets the foreign key status for the attribute.	Employee attributes: EmployeeID (primary key) Name Address Phone Department = foreign key for DepartmentID Department attributes DepartmentID - primary key Department Name Purpose Department Manager = foreign key for EmployeeID

Understanding Relationships

Relationships between tables have a direction that depends on the table on which you are focused. For example, looking at the Teacher table, shown below, you can see 2 relationships.

• The school DepartmentID primary key connects into the Teacher table. This inbound relationship, called has-teachers, is highlighted in blue.
• The Teacher table connects from its TeacherID primary key to an attribute in the Course table. This outbound relationship, called runs, is highlighted in green.

One-to-many and Many-to-one

PhixFlow always draws a relationship arrow from a primary key to another, non-primary, attribute. This represents a one-to-many relationship, for example, one teacher→ runs→ many courses. 

A many-to-one relationship is implied when you read a relationship in the opposite direction. For example, a department has many teachers, and several teachers work for one department.

Many-to-many

To create a many-to-many relationship, you need an intermediate table that has foreign key attributes from the tables you want to connect. For example, many students take multiple courses. This relationship is shown using the intermediate table called CourseAttendee.

• A course→ is attended by→ many students
• A student→ takes → many courses