Design elements - ERD (crow's foot notation)

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.

What is Entity-Relationship Diagram

Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is an acknowledged method to visualize the logical structure of databases. Using special symbols described in ERD notations you can depict a database of any complexity. The vector graphic ER diagrams produced when using ConceptDraw ERD solution can be used in whitepapers, presentations, datasheets, posters, or any technical materials.

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.

Developing Entity Relationship Diagrams

When you need to visually represent the structure of relational database, Entity relationship diagram (ERD) is a type of diagram for that case. Most entity-relationship diagrams can be built with objects from Flowchart solution or ERD Solution which contains inbuilt templates. Follow these steps to create your own custom ERD diagram. Don't be frightened if it looks complex, ConceptDraw DIAGRAM makes it easy to create an ERD, and hundreds of other diagrams, in minutes.

Entity Relationship Software

Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is a leading data modeling tool that is used to illustrate the logical structure of database, helps to organize and represent your project's data in terms of entities, attributes and relationships. To describe the database structure usually is used the ERD Chen's or Crow's Foot notation. Chen's notation supposes the representation of entities by rectangles with the entities names inside, relationships by diamonds and attributes by ovals connected with a line to exactly one entity. In Crow's Foot notation the boxes are used to depict the entities and their attributes, the lines between them - to depict relationships. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM software extended with Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) Solution is convenient and useful for designing the ER Diagrams, and supports the use of Chen's or Crow’s Foot notation according to your needs and desires. The ERD diagrams produced with ConceptDraw DIAGRAM Entity Relationship Diagram software can be successfully used in whitepapers, presentations, posters, datasheets, technical materials, etc.

Entity Relationship Diagram - ERD - Software for Design Crows Foot ER Diagrams

ER-model is a data model which lets describe the conceptual schemes in a specific subject area. It can help to highlight the key entities and specify relationships that can be established between these entities. During the database design, it is realized the transformation of ER model into certain database scheme based on the chosen data model (relational, object, network, etc.). There are used two notations for ERDs: Crow's Foot and Chen's. Crow's Foot notation proposed by Gordon Everest represents the entity by rectangle containing its name (name must be unique within this model), and relation - by the line which links two entities involved in relationship. The relationship's plurality is graphically indicated by a "plug" on the end of the link, the optionality - by a circle. Entity-Relationship Diagrams based on Crow's Foot notation can be easily drawn using the ConceptDraw DIAGRAM. Extended with Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution, it is the best ERD diagrams software with powerful tools and ready design elements for Crow's Foot and Chen notations.

Chen ERD Diagram

The vector stencils library Chen ERD from the solution Entity-Relationship Diagrams (ERD) contains specific symbols of the Chen ERD notation including entity symbols and relationship symbols for ConceptDraw DIAGRAM diagramming and vector drawing software. The Entity-Relationship Diagrams (ERD) solution is contained in the Software Development area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.

Martin ERD Diagram

The vector stencils library Crow's Foot Notation from the solution Entity-Relationship Diagrams (ERD) contains specific symbols of the Crow's foot notation such as relationship symbols and entity symbols for ConceptDraw DIAGRAM diagramming and vector drawing software. The Entity-Relationship Diagrams (ERD) solution is contained in the Software Development area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.