Data Modeling Using the Entity-

Relationship (ER) Model

Outline
 Overview of Database Design Process
 Example Database Application (COMPANY)
 ER Model Concepts
 Entities and Attributes
 Entity Types, Value Sets, and Key Attributes
 Relationships and Relationship Types
 Weak Entity Types
 Roles and Attributes in Relationship Types
 ER Diagrams - Notation
 ER Diagram for COMPANY Schema
 Alternative Notations – UML class diagrams, others
 Data Modeling Tools

Slide 3- 2
Overview of Database Design Process
 Two main activities:
 Database design
 Applications design
 Focus in this chapter on database design
 To design the conceptual schema for a database
application
 Applications design focuses on the programs and
interfaces that access the database
 Generally considered part of software engineering

Slide 3- 3
Overview of Database Design Process

Draw the Entity

Relationship Diagram

Converting the ER-

diagram into Tables

Executing the Tables

in an actual DBMS
software file

Slide 3- 4
Purpose of E/R Model

 The E/R model allows us to sketch database

designs.
 Kinds of data and how they connect.
 Not how data changes.
 Designs are pictures called Entity-Relationship
diagrams.
 Later: convert E/R designs to relational DB
designs.

Slide 3- 5
Example COMPANY Database
We need to create a database schema design based on
the following (simplified) requirements of the COMPANY
Database:
 Step # 1 : Requirements Collection & Data Analysis
 The COMPANY database keeps track of:
 employees and their dependents,
departments, and
projects
 Database designers formulate a “Mini-world”
Description
Slide 3- 6
 “Mini-world” Description
 Concerning the department:
 company is organized into departments
 a department has a unique name, a unique number,
and a specific employee is its manager
 we track the start date for the manager function
 a department may be in several locations
 a department controls a number of projects

 Concerning the project:

 a project has a unique name, a unique number, and
is in a single location
Slide 3- 7
 “Mini-world” Description

 Concerning the employee:

 each employee has a name, social insurance
number, address, salary, gender, and birth date
 an employee is assigned to one department but
may work on several projects which are not
necessarily controlled by the same department
 we track the number of hours per week that an
employee works on each project
 we keep track of the direct supervisor of each
employee
 we track the dependents of each employee (for
insurance purposes)
Slide 3- 8
 “Mini-world” Description
 Concerning the dependent:
 we record each dependent’s first name, gender,
birth date, and relationship to the employee

 Step # 2 : Build the database Schema (ER

diagram)

Slide 3- 9
Entities
 Entities are specific objects or things in the mini-
world that are represented in the database.

 For example:
 The EMPLOYEE John Smith,
 The Research DEPARTMENT,
 The ProductX PROJECT

Slide 3- 10
Entity Type & Entity Set
 Each Entity Type will have a collection of entities
stored in the database
 Called the Entity Set

 Same name (EMPLOYEE) used to refer to both

the entity type and the entity set

 Entity set is the current state of the entities of that

type that are stored in the database

Slide 3- 11
Initial Design of Entity Types for the
COMPANY Database Schema

 Based on the requirements, we can identify four

initial entity types in the COMPANY database:
 DEPARTMENT
 PROJECT
 EMPLOYEE
 DEPENDENT

 Their initial design is shown on the following slide

Slide 3- 12
 Entities

In ER diagrams, an entity is displayed in a

rectangular box
dependent

employee

project
department

Slide 3- 13
Attributes
 Attributes are properties used to describe an entity.
 For example:
 an EMPLOYEE entity may have the attributes
 Name, SSN, Address, Gender, BirthDate

 A specific entity will have a value for each of its attributes.

 For example:
 a specific employee entity may have
 Name='John Smith', SSN='123456789', Address ='731, Fondren,
Houston, TX', Gender='M', BirthDate='09-JAN-55‘

 Each attribute has a value set (or data type) associated

with it – e.g. integer, string, subrange, …

Slide 3- 14
  Attributes
In ER diagrams, an attribute is displayed in an oval

fname minit lname

name gender address

salary dependent
ssn name gender birthdate relationship
employee
bdate
degree

name number location project

department name number location

Number of Employees

Slide 3- 15
Types of Attributes
 Simple
 Each entity has a single atomic value for the attribute. For
example: SSN.
 Composite
 The attribute may be composed of several components. For
example:
 Address(Apt#, House#, Street, City, State, ZipCode, Country), or
 Name(FirstName, MiddleName, LastName).
 Composition may form a hierarchy where some components
are themselves composite.
 Multi-valued
 An entity may have multiple values for that attribute. For
example, Color of a CAR or PreviousDegrees of a STUDENT.
 Denoted as {Color} or {PreviousDegrees}.

Slide 3- 16
  Attributes

Composite
fname minit lname

name gender address

salary dependent
ssn name gender birthdate relationship
employee
bdate
Multi-valued
degree

name number location project

department name number location

Number of Employees
Simple

Slide 3- 17
Complex Attributes
 In general, composite and multi-valued attributes
may be nested arbitrarily to any number of levels,
although this is rare.
 For example, PreviousDegrees of a STUDENT is
a composite multi-valued attribute denoted by
{PreviousDegrees (College, Year, Degree, Field)}
 Multiple PreviousDegrees values can exist
 Each has four subcomponent attributes:
 College, Year, Degree, Field

Slide 3- 18
Key Attributes
 An attribute of an entity type for which each
entity MUST have a Unique Value is called
a key attribute of the entity type.
 For example, SSN of EMPLOYEE.
 A key attribute may be composite.
 VehicleTagNumber is a key of the CAR entity

type with components (Number, State).

 An entity type may have more than one key.
 Each key is underlined

Slide 3- 19
  Attributes

fname minit lname

name gender address

salary dependent
ssn name gender birthdate relationship
employee
bdate
degree

name number location project

department name number location

Number of Employees
Key
Attribute
(Constraint)
Slide 3- 20
Refining the initial design by introducing
relationships
 The initial design is typically not complete
 Some aspects in the requirements will be
represented as relationships
 ER model has three main concepts:
 Entities (and their entity types and entity sets)
 Attributes (simple, composite, multivalued)
 Relationships (and their relationship types and
relationship sets)
 We introduce relationship concepts next

Slide 3- 21
Relationships and Relationship Types
 A relationship relates two or more distinct entities with a
specific meaning. For example:
 EMPLOYEE John Smith works on ProductX PROJECT,
 EMPLOYEE Franklin Wong manages Research
DEPARTMENT.

 Relationships of the same type are grouped or typed into

a relationship type. For example:
 WORKS_ON relationship type in which EMPLOYEEs and
PROJECTs participate, or
 MANAGES relationship type in which EMPLOYEEs and
DEPARTMENTs participate.

Slide 3- 22
 Relationships

works for department

employee

project
 In ER diagrams, we represent the relationship type
as: Diamond-shaped box connected to the participating
entity types via straight lines
dependent

Slide 3- 23
Relationship instances of the WORKS_FOR N:1
relationship between EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT

Slide 3- 24
Relationship instances of the M:N WORKS_ON
relationship between EMPLOYEE and PROJECT

Slide 3- 25
Relationship type vs. relationship set
 Relationship Type:
 Is the schema description of a relationship
 Identifies the relationship name and the
participating entity types
 Also identifies certain relationship constraints
 Relationship Set:
 The current set of relationship instances
represented in the database
 The current state of a relationship type

Slide 3- 26
 Degree of a relationship type
 The degree of a relationship type is the number
of participating entity types.
 Both MANAGES and WORKS_ON are binary
relationships.
 The “works_for” relationship is of degree two 
binary
 A relationship in which for example a supplier
supplies parts to a project is of degree three 
ternary

Slide 3- 27
Refining the COMPANY database
schema by introducing relationships
 By examining the requirements, six relationship types are
identified
 All are binary relationships
 Listed below with their participating entity types:
 WORKS_FOR (between EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT)
 MANAGES (also between EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT)
 CONTROLS (between DEPARTMENT, PROJECT)
 WORKS_ON (between EMPLOYEE, PROJECT)
 SUPERVISION (between EMPLOYEE (as subordinate),
EMPLOYEE (as supervisor))
 DEPENDENTS_OF (between EMPLOYEE, DEPENDENT)

Slide 3- 28
Relationships

works for department

employee manages controls

supervision works on project

dependents of

dependent

Slide 3- 29
Discussion on Relationship Types
 In the refined design, some attributes from the initial entity
types are refined into relationships:
 Manager of DEPARTMENT -> MANAGES
 Works_on of EMPLOYEE -> WORKS_ON
 Department of EMPLOYEE -> WORKS_FOR
 etc
 In general, more than one relationship type can exist
between the same participating entity types
 MANAGES and WORKS_FOR are distinct relationship
types between EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT
 Different meanings and different relationship instances.

Slide 3- 30
Initial Design of Entity Types:
EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT, PROJECT, DEPENDENT

These
attributes will
turn into
relationships

Slide 3- 31
Recursive Relationship Type
 An relationship type with the same participating entity type
acting in distinct roles
 Example: the SUPERVISION relationship
 EMPLOYEE participates twice in two distinct roles:
 supervisor (or boss) role
 supervisee (or subordinate) role
 Each relationship instance relates two distinct
EMPLOYEE entities:
 One employee in supervisor role
 One employee in supervisee role

Slide 3- 32
Role Names & Recursive Relationships

works for department

employee
supervisee supervisor

supervision

Slide 3- 33
Constraints on Relationships
 Cardinality Ratio (specifies maximum participation)
 One-to-one (1:1)
 One-to-many (1:N) or Many-to-one (N:1)
 Many-to-many (M:N)

 Participation Constraint (Existence Dependency

Constraint)
 specifies minimum participation
 zero (optional participation, not existence-dependent)
 one or more (mandatory participation, existence-dependent)

Slide 3- 34
Constraints  Cardinality Ratio

1
N works for department
1
1
employee manages 1 controls
supervisee N
supervisor
N
N 1 M
supervision 1 works on project
dependents of

dependent

Slide 3- 35
Constraints  Participation

1
N works for department
1
1
employee manages 1 controls
supervisee N
supervisor
N
N 1 M
supervision 1 works on project
dependents of

partial
dependent
constraint
total constraint
Slide 3- 36
Attributes of Relationship types
 A relationship type can have attributes:
 For example, HoursPerWeek of WORKS_ON
 Its value for each relationship instance describes
the number of hours per week that an EMPLOYEE
works on a PROJECT.
 A value of HoursPerWeek depends on a particular
(employee, project) combination
 Most relationship attributes are used with M:N
relationships
 In 1:N relationships, they can be transferred to the
entity type on the N-side of the relationship

Slide 3- 37
  Attributes of Relationships

1
N works for department
startdate 1
1
employee manages 1 controls
supervisee hours N
supervisor
N
N 1 M
supervision 1 works on project
dependents of

partial
dependent
constraint
total constraint
Slide 3- 38
Weak Entity Types
 Strong entity
 key attribute
 entity has a key attribute or a combination of attributes
which can be used as a key.

 Weak entity
 No key attributes, may have a partial key
 related to specific entities from another entity type in
combination with some of their attribute values.
 the identifying relationship will have total participation for the
weak entity
 identifying owner

Slide 3- 39
 name number
location

fname minit lname 1

salary
N works for department
name gender address
1 number of
startdate employees
ssn 1
employee manages controls
bdate 1
degree
supervisor N hours N
supervisee M
1
supervision works on project
dependents of name number location
N

Weak Entity dependent

gender birthdate relationship
name

Slide 3- 40
 Composite Final ER-Diagram
Participation Cardinality
Constraints Constraints
name number
location

fname minit lname 1

salary
N works for department
name gender address
1 number of
startdate employees
ssn 1
employee manages controls
bdate 1

Derived
degree
supervisor N hours N
supervisee M
1
supervision works on project
Multi-Valued

dependents of name number location

N

Key Attribute
Weak Entity dependent (Constraint)

name gender birthdate relationship Slide 3- 41

Alternative (min, max) notation for
relationship structural constraints:
 Specified on each participation of an entity type E in a relationship
type R
 Specifies that each entity e in E participates in at least min and at
most max relationship instances in R
 Default(no constraint): min=0, max=n (signifying no limit)
 Must have minmax, min0, max 1
 Derived from the knowledge of mini-world constraints
 Examples:
 A department has exactly one manager and an employee can

manage at most one department.

 Specify (0,1) for participation of EMPLOYEE in MANAGES
 Specify (1,1) for participation of DEPARTMENT in MANAGES
 An employee can work for exactly one department but a
department can have any number of employees.
 Specify (1,1) for participation of EMPLOYEE in WORKS_FOR
 Specify (1,n) for participation of DEPARTMENT in WORKS_FOR

Slide 3- 42
The (min,max) notation for
relationship constraints

Read the min,max numbers next to the entity

type and looking away from the entity type

Slide 3- 43
COMPANY ER Schema Diagram using (min,
max) notation

Slide 3- 44
Summary of notation for ER diagrams

Slide 3- 45
Alternative diagrammatic notation
 ER diagrams is one popular example for
displaying database schemas
 Many other notations exist in the literature and in
various database design and modeling tools
 Appendix A illustrates some of the alternative
notations that have been used
 UML class diagrams is representative of another
way of displaying ER concepts that is used in
several commercial design tools

Slide 3- 46
UML class diagrams
 Represent classes (similar to entity types) as large boxes
with three sections:
 Top section includes entity type (class) name
 Second section includes attributes
 Third section includes class operations (operations are not
in basic ER model)
 Relationships (called associations) represented as lines
connecting the classes
 Other UML terminology also differs from ER terminology
 Used in database design and object-oriented software
design
 UML has many other types of diagrams for software
design (see Chapter 12)

Slide 3- 47
UML class diagram for COMPANY
database schema

Slide 3- 48
Other alternative diagrammatic notations

Slide 3- 49
Data Modeling Tools
 A number of popular tools that cover conceptual modeling
and mapping into relational schema design.
 Examples: ERWin, S- Designer (Enterprise Application
Suite), ER- Studio, etc.
 POSITIVES:
 Serves as documentation of application requirements, easy
user interface - mostly graphics editor support
 NEGATIVES:
 Most tools lack a proper distinct notation for relationships
with relationship attributes
 Mostly represent a relational design in a diagrammatic form
rather than a conceptual ER-based design

Slide 3- 50
 Some of the Currently Available
Automated Database Design Tools
COMPANY TOOL FUNCTIONALITY
Embarcadero ER Studio Database Modeling in ER and IDEF1X
Technologies
DB Artisan Database administration, space and security management

Oracle Developer 2000/Designer 2000 Database modeling, application development

Popkin Software System Architect 2001 Data modeling, object modeling, process modeling,
structured analysis/design
Platinum Enterprise Modeling Suite: Erwin, Data, process, and business component modeling
(Computer BPWin, Paradigm Plus
Associates)
Persistence Inc. Pwertier Mapping from O-O to relational model

Rational (IBM) Rational Rose UML Modeling & application generation in C++/JAVA
Resolution Ltd. Xcase Conceptual modeling up to code maintenance
Sybase Enterprise Application Suite Data modeling, business logic modeling
Visio Visio Enterprise Data modeling, design/reengineering Visual Basic/C++
Slide 3- 51
Chapter Summary
 ER Model Concepts: Entities, attributes,
relationships
 Constraints in the ER model
 Using ER in step-by-step conceptual schema
design for the COMPANY database
 ER Diagrams - Notation
 Alternative Notations – UML class diagrams,
others
 Data Modeling Tools

Slide 3- 52