A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

     1  Identify  entities 

  

Entities

  define the broad groupings of information such as information about different 

people, transactions or products. Examples include customer, employee, sales orders, pur-

chase orders. When the design is implemented each design will form a  

database table

 .     

 

  2  Identify attributes for entities 

 ‘ 

Attributes

 ’ describe the characteristics of any single instance of an entity. For example, the 

customer entity has attributes such as name, phone number and email address. When the 

design is implemented each attribute will form a  

fi eld

 , and the collection of fields for one 

instance of the entity such as a particular customer will form a  

record

 .       

 With the growth in use of social media services, there is a need for businesses to link cus-

tomer data from different sources. The development of APIs from social networks to enable 

 

social sign-in

   has  helped  with  this  ( Box    11.2   ).