Advice on relationships

[joannax]

Can anybody please help I am trying to develop a simple PC replacement and audit database, and I’m having a few problems normalising the tables.

I need to keep the same field names as below, as these are related to a existing Excel spreadsheet, the tables are below:

(If anybody could please advise me regarding to whether I have normalised the five tables below correctly and to whether I have the relationships correct, I would be very grateful for any advice)

Regards,

Joanna

TABLE: USERNAME TABLE

USER ID
Department
Section
Username

TABLE: PC TABLE

PC ID
PC Network Name
PC Type
Processor
Pentium
O/S
Office Version
Ram
Outlook Version
CD-RW
Other Software
Purchase Date
Type Of Funding
Notes (PC)
VDU ID
PRINTER ID

TABLE: REPLACEMENT TABLE

USER ID
PC ID
Replacement Period
Replacement Specification
Date Replaced

TABLE: MONITOR TABLE

VDU ID
Monitor Size/Type
Monitor Serial Number


TABLE: PRINTER TABLE

PRINTER ID
Printer Type
Printer Serial Number
Printer Support Pack Finish Date
Printer Networked

 

[vb6novice]

Joanna,

I would have concerns about the PC Table and the REPLACEMENT table. Is the PC ID specific to a physical machine (meaning that if you replace a PC, the new one has a different PC ID than the old that was on that desk being used by that USER), or is the PC ID specific to its location, function, etc. (meaning that if you take out the Compag with PC ID of pc456 and put a Dell in its place, will the Dell be pc456 or something else)?

I can see where you have a printer and a VDU identified with a PC in the PC table (meaning a one to one relationship). That’s OK. Is there a one USER to one PC relationship? If so, you could include the USERID in the PC Table. Also, the information in the REPLACEMENT table seems to have a one to one relationship with the PC (based on a PC ID that is specific to one and only one machine), so I would think you could include those fields in the PC table also, and eliminate the REPLACEMENT table altogether.

 

[fneily]

In your PC Table you have a field called Processor and one called Pentium. Pentium is a processor. Also where would you put AMD (which is a better processor, by the way)? Get rid of Pentium.