4 3 1 For Traditional Application Systems

4.3.1 For Traditional Application Systems

Given that the database is usually designed before the applications are created, you should first examine it closely and attempt to identify and define primary "objects".

For example, a database being used to store corporate order details may contain the following objects:

Customers

Orders

Products

 

Assign a unique 3 letter identifier (as per the guidelines previously discussed) to each identifiable object stored in the database. For example:

Customers	CUS
Orders	ORD
Products	PRO

 

Next, examine each object, and decide what "actions" must be performed to satisfy all business requirements. To each "action" (now called a FUNCTION) assign a unique identifier as recommended:

Customers (CUS)

maintain CUS0001 show outstanding orders CUS0002 print all CUS0003 print by state CUS0004

 Orders (ORD)

maintain ORD0001 print ORD0002 archive ORD0003

 Products (PRO)

maintain PRO0001 print details PRO0002 print sales analysis PRO0003

 

Finally, group the functions, which work on each object type into broad logical "categories". To each "category" (now called a PROCESS) assign a unique identifier as per the standards previously discussed:

Customers (CUS)

Work with customers (CUSWRK) maintain CUS0001 show outstanding orders CUS0002 Produce customer reports (CUSREP) print all CUS0003 print by state CUS0004

 

Orders (ORD)

Work with orders (ORDWRK) maintain ORD0001 print ORD0002 archive ORD0003

 

Products (PRO)

Work with products (PROWRK) maintain PRO0001 Produce product reports (PROREP) print details PRO0002 print sales analysis PRO0003

 

Note that the assignment of functions to categories (i.e., processes) is completely arbitrary, and may even seem inconsistent at this stage. For instance both customer and product reports have been placed into separate processes, but order reports have not.

The most common mistake made at this stage is to consider that a process is merely a menu. It may certainly be used as a menu, and in many instances works just fine as a menu, but its most important use at this stage is its ability to logically "group" or "categorize" functions together.