- 1Introduction
- 2Database history
- 3Relational database characteristics
- 4Customer contact system
- 5Tables and the primary key
- 6Linking tables
- 7The one-to-many relationship
- 8The many-to-many relationship
- 9The one-to-one relationship
- 10Database normalization
- 11The first normal form (1NF)
- 12The second normal form (2NF)
- 13The third normal form (3NF)
- 14The final database design
- 15Another example: webshop database
- 16Conclusion
Database design tutorial
Customer contact system
In this database design tutorial I will show you how to design a database model for a customer contact system. This system is used to store customer data and 'contact moments'. A contact moment can be a telephone call to or from customer, a letter, an e-mail, etc.
A program can use the database we will design in this tutorial to perform specific tasks, such as
- Selecting an ordered list of contact moments for a specific customer
- Inserting a new customer
- Selecting and displaying the last contact moment for a customer
- Inserting a new contact moment and displaying a confirmation message
- Updating a contact moment and displaying the updated contact moment
- Et cetera
The program that uses the database and the database together form a database application. The customer contact system is a database application too. In this database design tutorial, the customer contact system functions as an example from which we can derive the database specifications.