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 PRO 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 PRO software.

ER Diagram for Cloud Computing

The entity–relationship (ER) model is a data model that lets graphically represent the information system and depict the relationships between people, objects, concepts, places, and events within a given system. It is also convenient to use the ER Diagram for Cloud computing representation and description the Cloud computing architecture, design them with pleasure using the extensive tools of the Cloud Computing Diagrams solution from the Computers and Network area of ConceptDraw Solution Park.

Entity Relationship Diagram Software Engineering

Entity Relationship Diagram (aka ER Diagram, E-R Diagram, ERD) is a time-tested and widespread software development and software engineering method for data modeling, illustrating the logical structure of databases and system design. For ERDs construction are used three basic elements: entities, attributes, and relationships. Chen's notation for ERD supposes the use of rectangles (boxes) to represent entities and diamonds to depict relationships between first-class objects. This notation is popular when creating conceptual data models of information systems. Another standardized notation for ER diagrams is Crow's foot notation. ConceptDraw PRO as a powerful Entity Relationship Diagram software engineering provides the tools of Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution from Software Development area of ConceptDraw Solution Park for instantly describing databases using ERDs of Crow’s Foot and Chen’s notations. Use the predesigned vector elements for both these notations from 2 libraries included to Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution.

Components of ER Diagram

Entity-Relationship model gives the possibility to visually describe a database using the components of ER Diagram, entity relationship stencils, relationship symbols, work flow shapes. ER-diagram lets represent the data or entities, attributes of these entities and relationships between them, using standardized Crow’s Foot notation icons or Chen’s notation icons. An entity is an object of the real world, it can exist independently and has the instances which differ in attribute values (properties). The attributes give an unambiguous (uniquely) identification for the instance and are called the primary key, this key can be composite and combine several attributes. ConceptDraw PRO is a professional software available with Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution from Software Development area that lets create ERDs for various database systems, using Crow’s Foot and Chen’s notations. It is invaluable tool for software engineers and developers, it supports ODBC-compatible databases (Oracle, MySQL, MS Access, MS SQL, InterBase, Firebird and others).

Draw Fishbone Diagram on MAC Software

The problem solving and decision-making processes are closely linked and crucial for the business and life. There are many tools and techniques for facilitating and improvement these processes, and also enhancement the quality of accepted decisions. One of them is Fisbone Diagram or Cause and Effect diagram. For its construction, you need first define the problem which you need to solve (existing or potential), write it into rectangular and draw to it a horizontal line - a “fish spine”. Then define general types of possible causes like Persons, Materials, Methods, Machinery, Measurements or Environment, and attach them to “spine”. Start brainstorming the possible reasons of failure and connect them to the branches. Professional diagramming ConceptDraw PRO MAC OSX software offers the Fishbone Diagrams solution which contains templates, samples, and ready Fishbone design objects. Use of them lets effectively identify the possible causes for an effect, realize successfully cause and effect analysis, and instantly draw Fishbone diagram on Mac software.

Drawing ER diagrams on a Mac

The drawing of ER diagrams on a Mac, PC with Windows or on the computer with cross-platform environment is smooth and incredibly easy when you have professional ERD drawing software tool well-suited for both these platforms. ConceptDraw PRO software extended with Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution from Software Development Area of ConceptDraw Solution Park is certainly the best tool for drawing ER diagrams. Use the powerful drawing tools of the Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution, built-in templates, samples, examples and 2 libraries ERD Chen's Notation and ERD Crow’s Foot Notation with numerous predesigned vector objects for easy drawing the ER diagram of any type that you need. A few simple steps will allow you to achieve the best result and design great-looking ER diagram: drag the required vector objects from the libraries offered by Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) Solution on your document, connect them in a needed order, apply the commands from the Action menus of these objects, edit the diagram's style with Line, Fill, Shadow and Text tools.