Thread: Documenting database

Thank you so much, everyone, for your input. I do not have Visio, unfortunately, nor specialized software. The Word document is very doable and I liked the idea of using Bookmarks and Hyperlinks. The purpose of the document is to help people understand how the application uses tables to store data, so I think the Word approach will really suit my needs here. Again, I appreciate your thoughts.

True. Essentially, you would have to mirror the way Access records relationships and then displays that data in a visual format in the relationsip window. Anyone who's ever looked at the relationships system table in access would probably agree with you Gemma. Myself included. Difficult? Absolutely. Possible? Anything is possible. How much time and money do you have?

When I am asked to document something like this, I use the old reliable Word applicaiton. If you will start by documenting the name of your table table and immediately provide screen captures of the relationships and any other screen captures that will help you document the structure, then when you need info about one table you can simply do a search through the document for where it is documented. I also use Bookmarks and/or Hyperlink and...

Microsoft Visio will allow you to reverse eng over a ODBC

I have a program on my comp called Concept Draw Web Wave, it might be useful, I have seen one use of this software to show a database's design with links, table relationships, etc, plus you can add text boxes, etc. I haven't had time to delve into the program, I believe you can also link to a database and import your table setup into it. This was suggested to me to use for documentation as you can add various layers, etc.

Sounds like you could even create a new database to document the oracle db

Thank you so much, everyone, for your input. I do not have Visio, unfortunately, nor specialized software. The Word document is very doable and I liked the idea of using Bookmarks and Hyperlinks. The purpose of the document is to help people understand how the application uses tables to store data, so I think the Word approach will really suit my needs here. Again, I appreciate your thoughts.

but documenting a big system is not simple - if you have lots of dbs objects, then recording how it hangs together is very very difficult. You need to have people with a general concept of how the whole thing works, and as it gets bigger, this becomes harder and harder what makes it difficult is you need someone with both a knowledge of IT, AND a knowledge of the business, and these are rare beasts. just try building a html/hyperlinked help...

Interesting that you found the Oracle Financials schema unfriendly. It has been a few years since I last worked with it but I always found it to be one of the most well-designed and easiest to understand of any financial / ERP system I know. Heaps better than SAP or PeopleSoft anyway. Oracle used to provide documentation for the schema, including diagrams and a data dictionary in soft form (PDF as I recall). So check with an Oracle rep before...

I found this in the Sample Database section Database Documentor: http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/...d.php?t=173624 Not sure it would work or not since you are oracle.