Visual Paradigm

From Data Modeling to Data Dictionary

Tutorial

From Data Modeling to Data Dictionary

Written Date : January 20, 2014
Data modeling is the process of representing data objects to use in an information system. In Visual
Paradigm, you can perform data modeling by drawing entity relationship diagram (ERD). By having
entities and their columns well defined and described, a professional data dictionary can be produced.
You will learn how to do all these in this tutorial.

What is Data Modeling?

Data modeling is the process of representing data objects and their relationships to other objects,
by applying data modeling techniques. Data modeling is performed to define data requirements
of an information system in supporting business processes. While there are several notations for
data modeling, entity relationship diagram (ERD) (or known as entity relationship model) is the most
popular one.

What is Data Dictionary?

Data dictionary is the textual description of data objects and their inter-relationships. Data dictionary is
commonly used in confirming data requirements and for database developers to create and maintain
a database system.

What is this Tutorial about?

This is data modeling tutorial written to outline the steps you need to take to perform data modeling
and producing data dictionary in Visual Paradigm.

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Preparation
In order complete this tutorial, make sure you have Visual Paradigm downloaded and installed. Click
here to download Visual Paradigm if you do not have it installed.

Part I - Data Modeling

1.

Create a new project in Visual Paradigm. You can create project by selecting File > New
Project from the main menu.

2.

Create a new entity relationship diagram (ERD) by clicking on the Diagrams button in toolbar
and selecting Entity Relationship Diagram.

3.

Draw a Company entity. To draw an entity, select Entity from the diagram toolbar (on the left
hand side of the diagram) and click on the blank area of the ERD to create one.

4.

Right click on the Company entity and select New Column from the popup menu.

5.

Enter + ID : integer. "+" stands for a primary key, while ID is the name of the column and integer
is its type.

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6.

Press Enter and create another column name : varchar(255). This column is not a primary key
so you don't need to add "+" before it. It's a varchar, with 255 as type length.

7.

Press Enter to confirm editing.

8.

Press Esc to complete column creation.

9.

Let's create one more entity. Move your mouse pointer over the Company entity. This shows a
set of resource icons around the entity shape. Press on One-to-Many Relationship -> Entity and
drag it out.

10.

Release the mouse button to create a new entity. Enter Employee as name.

11.

Right click on the Employee entity and select New Column from the popup menu.

12.

Again, enter +ID : integer to create a primary key for this entity.

13.

Press Enter and create another column name : varchar(255).

14.

Press Enter and create another column jobtitle : varchar(50).

15.

Press Enter to confirm editing.

16.

Press Esc to complete column creation.

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17.

Let's define the entities and columns. Open the Documentation Pane. The shortcut key is CtrlShift-U.

18.

Click on the Company entity in ERD and define it by entering the description in the
Documentation Pane: A company is a business unit that provides good or service.

19.

Similarly, click on Employee and define it in Documentation Pane: An employee is someone

who work in a company.

20.

Repeat the steps for columns in Company entity:

ID - For the unique identification of company records.
name - Name of the company.

21.

Repeat the steps for columns in Employee entity:

ID - For the unique identification of employee records.
name - Name of the employee.
jobtitle - The position of the employee in a company.

Part II - Producing Data Dictionary

Time to produce a data dictionary! There are several reporting tools you can select in producing a
data dictionary. In this tutorial, let's try Report Composer.

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1.

Click on the Diagrams button in toolbar and select Report.

2.

This creates an empty report. What you have to do is to fill it up with contents. In this tutorial, the
data dictionary. Now, click on the ERD listed under the Diagram Navigator.

3.

Open the Property Pane. The shortcut key is Ctrl-Shift-P.

4.

The Property Pane is now listing the available templates of ERD. Select Data Specification
Report and drag it to the report.

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5.

Release your mouse button to produce the content of data dictionary.

6.

Are you happy with the content? Let's try something different. Create a new report. Again, click
on the Diagrams button in toolbar and select Report.

7.

Click on the ERD listed under the Diagram Navigator.

8.

This time, select the Entity Relationship Diagram template and drag it onto the report.

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9.

Select the Data Dictionary template and drag it onto the report, under the ERD image.

10.

Let's change the pages to show in landscape. Click on Report Properties... in the toolbar.

11.

In the Report Properties window, open the Page Setup tab.

12.

Select Landscape for Page Orientation.

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13.

Click OK to return to the report composer. Look pretty nice now?

14.

As you may notice, there is another template named Data Dictionary 2, you may try it yourself
later on. Now, let's produce a Word document from the report. Click on the Export button at the
top right corner of Report Composer, and then select Word Report... from the popup menu.

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15.

Tutorial

In the Export Word Report window, specify the output path of the Word file and click Export.

You now got a Word document of your data dictionary. In practice, you can send this to your
client, the database administrator or anyone who need to refer to it.

Part III - Keeping Data Dictionary Up-to-Date

One of the most important yet challenging part of documenting a design is to keep the document upto-date, showing the latest changes made in the design. Imagine if you have added more entities in
ERD, or have updated the definition of some entities, you probably need to update the data dictionary
to reflect the latest definition. Report Composer provides you with a Refresh function to accomplish
this. Let's try.
1.

Open your ERD.

2.

Add an entity Project from the Employee entity, with a One-to-Many relationship in between.

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3.

Now, go back to your report with data dictionary.

On top of the report there is a toolbar. Click on the Refresh button.

4.

You should see the report content updated by showing the new entity in image.

Tutorial

So now, you can export an updated data dictionary, and send it to anyone who need it. :-)

Related Resources

Company-and-Employee-ERD.vpp

sample-data-dictionary.docx

Related Links

Visual Paradigm User's Guide - Drawing entity relationship diagram

Visual Paradigm User's Guide - Developing a report in Report Composer

Visual Paradigm Tutorial - Report Customization with Report Composer

Visual Paradigm home page

(http://www.visual-paradigm.com/)

Visual Paradigm tutorials

(http://www.visual-paradigm.com/tutorials/)

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