As in our previous post, database models refer to the way information is organised and stored. More specifically, models address the way information is related to one another. For eg., in a retail Business, we are concerned by the relationship between the customer and the seller, the products sold etc.

Modeling of data requires a thorough understanding of the business. Any business will comprise of a set of workflows involving a set of people and systems performing specific activities. The workflow helps to capture the people-people, system-system and people-system interaction.

A business generally gets initiated by a people-people or people-system interaction. An example of this is a customer visiting a shop asking for a product. Here this is a people-people interaction. Another example would be, a customer visiting a website and ordering for a product. This is a people-system interaction.

Once a business gets initiated, further activities might involve system-system interaction, depending on the business. For eg, in the case of a business involving a customer approaching a stationary shop for an item, it might not require any system-system interaction, but a website selling products online would require a set of systems, like the order management system, payment system, shipping system etc.,
Once we identify the set of workflows, we have to identify the different activities performed in each workflow.

Any business will involve set of activities performed by a set of people and/systems. The starting point of modeling data is to identify the following
1. The different types of people involved.
2. The different activities performed by the people.
3. The data involved in the different activities.

For eg., in the case of a retail business, the customer, retailer, wholesaler, manufacturer are all the different people involved. Each of them have a set of activities or functions. For eg., the customer buys goods from the retailer, the retailer orders goods from the wholesaler and sells goods to the customer. The retailer settles the sales amount with the wholesaler etc. The different types of data that are involved are - the product details, the sales volume and amount etc.

Further drilling down the activities, we capture the individual tasks in each activity/function. Each of these tasks are captured at the granular level as much as possible. Similarly data is also captured at the granular level. For eg., a customer approaching a shopkeeper, asking for a product, the shopkeeper giving the product, the shopkeeper generating a bill, the customer paying the amount, the shopkeeper giving the product and the bill to the customer - all are individual tasks in the particular activity "the customer buys a product".