Design Product Cataglog DataBase

[sippyuconn]

Hi

I want to move a product catalog to a db and just wanted to see what people
think of this design and how I can improve it

Here are my major questions
1)Does this design look ok?
2)How do I handle new catalog each year ??? new database ???
3)If I use relationships - how does that help me
4)One major feature I need to provide is to print out the catalog in
hierarchy structure - how would I do that???

1- TV
1001 TV
10001 Sony 42' plasma
10002 Sony 44' plasma
2001 DVD
20001 Panasonic dvd player
20002 Sony portable dvd player

2- Audio
3001 MP3
30001 Ipod 2 gig nano
30002 Ipod 4 gig nano



Category Table

category desc
1 TV
2 Audio
3 CAR

SubCategory Table
category subcategory desc
1 1001 tv
1 1002 dvd
2 2001 mp3
2 2002 speakers


Product table

subcategory product desc
1001 10001 Sony 42' plasma
1001 10002 Sony 44' plasma
2001 21001 Panasonic dvd player
2001 21001 Sont portable dvd player

 

[Jeff Boyce]

Why is a DVD a "TV" product? Why is an MV3 player a "300x" series item, but
located under a "2x-Audio" hierarchy?

I may have a different perspective on your "domain" than you do, so these
thoughts represent my perspective...

You have items (e.g. TV, MP3 player, ...).

Items may have zero, one (?!or more) "Use categories" ... (e.g., a DVD
player can be used w/ a TV).

(Some) items have "type categories" (e.g., "plasma", "LCD", "CRT")

(Some) items have "size" (e.g., 36", 42", ...)

Any given item has one and only one manufacturer (e.g., Sony, Apple, ...)
((and "model #"...)) (((and "serial#")))

If I were building a database on this information, the characteristics would
most likely end up a "attributes" of entities. The "one and only one"
phrases would indicate relationships between entities. And the "things"
(items, manufacturers, ...) would represent entities.

If the topics of "normalization" and entity/relationship diagramming don't
make sense, reconsider using Access -- it is a relational database and
relies on data that's been organized this way.

Good luck!

--
Regards

Jeff Boyce
www.InformationFutures.net

Microsoft Office/Access MVP


Microsoft IT Academy Program Mentor
http://microsoftitacademy.com/

 

[sippyuconn]

Hi Jeff

Thanks for the information - just one followup question.
How do people handle versions of data???
Say there is a version for 2006, 2007, 2008 etc

Do they just add a version attribute to every data element or create
separate tables
for each version???

Thanks again

 

[Wei Lu [MSFT]]

Hello Sippy,

You need to add a column in the table for version if you only need to
specify different version for the catalog.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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