Content deleted Content added
Line 20:
* ''Entities'' are containers created within a model. Entities provide a home for members, and are in many ways analogous to database tables. (e.g. Customer)
* ''Members'' are analogous to the records in a database table (Entity) e.g. Will Smith. Members are contained within entities. Each member is made up of two or more attributes.
* ''Attributes'' are analogous to the columns within a database table (Entity) e.g. Surname. Attributes exist within entities and help describe members (the records within the table). Name and Code attributes are created by default for each entity and serve to describe and uniquely identify leaf members. Attributes can be related to other attributes from other entities which are called '___domain-based' attributes. This is similar to the concept of a foreign key.
Other attributes however, will be of type 'free-form' (most common) or 'file'. * ''Attribute Groups'' are explicitly defined collections of particular attributes. Say you have an entity "customer" that has 50 attributes — too much information for many of your users. Attribute groups enable the creation of custom sets of hand-picked attributes that are relevant for specific audiences. (e.g. "customer - delivery details" that would include just their name and last known delivery address). This is very similar to a database view.
* ''Hierarchies'' organise members into either Derived or Explicit hierarchical structures. Derived hierarchies, as the name suggests, are derived by the MDS engine based on the relationships that exist between attributes. Explicit hierarchies are created by hand using both leaf and consolidated members.
| |||