ERD Symbols and Meanings

Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is a popular software engineering tool for database modeling and illustration the logical structure of databases, which uses one of two notations - Chen's or Crow’s Foot. Crow's foot notation is effective when used in software engineering, information engineering, structured systems analysis and design. Each of these notations applies its own set of ERD symbols. Crow's foot diagrams use boxes to represent entities and lines between these boxes to show relationships. Varied shapes at the ends of lines depict the cardinality of a given relationship. Chen's ERD notation is more detailed way to represent entities and relationships. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM application enhanced with all-inclusive Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution allows design professional ER diagrams with Chen's or Crow’s Foot notation on your choice. It contains the full set of ready-to-use standardized ERD symbols and meanings helpful for quickly drawing, collection of predesigned ERD samples, examples and templates. ConceptDraw Pro is a great alternative to Visio for Mac users as it offers more features and can easily handle the most demanding professional needs.

Entity Relationship Diagram Symbols

The semantic modeling method nowadays is successfully applied in database structure design. It is effective method of modeling the data structures, which is based on the meaning of these data. As a tool of semantic modeling, there are used different types of Entity-Relationship Diagrams. Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is applied to visually and clearly represent a structure of a business database. The main components of ERDs are: entity, relation and attributes. An entity is a class of similar objects in the model, each entity is depicted in the form of rectangle and has the name expressed by a noun. Relation is shown in the form of non-directional line that connects two entities. There are several notation styles used for ERDs: information engineering style, Chen style, Bachman style, Martin Style. The Entity Relationship Diagram symbols used for professional ERD drawing are predesigned by professionals and collected in the libraries of the Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution for ConceptDraw DIAGRAM software.

Flowchart Definition

Flowchart definition - A Flowchart is a diagram that graphically represents the structure of the system, the flow of steps in a process, algorithm, or the sequence of steps and decisions for execution a process or solution a problem. For depiction the steps there are used specific shapes and graphic symbols which are linked by lines and directional arrows. The main standard shapes are rectangle or box, rounded box, diamond, circle. A Flowchart is a convenient way to observe the follow the process from beginning to end, it lets improve the work of process, highlight the key elements and detach not essential or even excessive steps. The Flowcharts can represent different levels of detail: High-Level Flowchart, Detailed Flowchart, and Deployment or Matrix Flowchart. They are incredibly useful for programmers when developing the programs of any complexity and on any high level language. Create your own Flowcharts using the ConceptDraw DIAGRAM diagramming and vector drawing software and powerful tools of Flowcharts solution from "Diagrams" area.

UML Deployment Diagram. Design Elements

UML Deployment diagram describes the hardware used in system implementations and the execution environments and artifacts deployed on the hardware. ConceptDraw has 393 vector stencils in the 13 libraries that helps you to start using software for designing your own UML Diagrams. You can use the appropriate stencils of UML notation from UML Deployment library.