Writing a manual for a database/spreadsheet.

[Darren Bartrup]

I've been on a few courses related to designing databases and generally the only thing they've taught me is a few shortcuts.

What I have real problems with is writing a manual for databases that I've designed.
How in Word document would you describe the relationships between a hundred tables? How do you explain how a bunch of queries interact to come to a final result? What's the easiest way to explain your coding?

If someone asks me to add a new report/form a year after I've finished the database I have real trouble understanding my notes and remember how the database works, so I pity the person who'll have to do it after I've left.

Does anyone know of any websites or books that address this issue? It seems to be a much overlooked problem when learning how to build these things.

 

[Andrew Fergus]

Hi

Google & TUCOWS turned up a few resources:

http://www.dbdesc.com/
http://aspalliance.com/288
http://www.drexplain.com/?ref=gaw_05
http://www.tucows.com/preview/418977
http://www.tucows.com/preview/392437
http://www.tucows.com/Windows/DevelopmentWebAuthoring/HelpDocumentation/
http://www.tucows.com/Windows/Business/DatabaseManagement/DatabaseTools/

Whilst these tools might help with the documentation, I haven't checked to see if they can help with describing multi-table relationships. I usually find that breaking a large task into smaller tasks makes it easier and as they say 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. It sounds like now is a good chance to develop your own standards!

Andrew

 

[Darren Bartrup]

Thanks for those links. I doubt my boss will go for spending any money on this but at least I can get an idea of how to layout my documentation and have a starting point.