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| Introduction
to database design. |
| A
database can be a powerful tool when designed correctly and efficiently.
The entire idea around having a efficient database is so it can be
applied in many different ways, with little or no alterations in the
actual data itself. |
| Why
use a table? |
|
| The
difference between a block style database, and a table based database
is that in the table based database, data can be sorted, altered and
retrieved much easier than a block style. |
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| Plan
your database before creating. |
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| The
first step in creating your database scheme, whether it be in Excel,
Access ,or any other table based database software is to make a list
of what you need to store to make a complete database. For the purposes
of this tutorial, we will be creating a database to be used for direct
mailing purposes. |
| Take
into consideration |
|
| If
you were to handwrite an address block on an envelope, you would probably
include a name, address, and city, state, zip. This is fine, if that’s
all you needed to get the envelope to its destination, but in the
case of a database, that is a bare minimum, and anything less would
be inadequate. When creating a database, you have to take into consideration
of all the possible pieces of data that may or may not be included
with each record you plan on entering; Meaning, remember to leave
room to expand or to put additional data if needed. If you know that
segmenting the list (by respondents, county, donor amount or last
contact for example) will let you save money by mailing to the right
"targeted" people, be sure to have columns available for
this information. |
| Lets
begin. |
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| First
and foremost, each record should have a unique identifier assigned
to it. In our case, we will use an incremental number, starting from
1 up to however many records will be entered into the database. |
| Forming
a contact block. |
|
| The
next column over, following the index field, we start to label the
fields according to what data will be entered in that column: Company
Name, First Name, Middle Initial, Last Name, Title. These fields will
be called the Contact Block. These may be all you will need to have
a well organized, Contact Block, but you can name them best to fit
your database. |
| Forming
a address block. |
|
| On
to the Address block. Since we are designing a direct mailing database,
there needs to be fields that will get the piece to its destination.
The same method applies:; take into consideration of any combinations
of addresses, suites, apartments, or any other needed data, when creating
and labeling your fields. We will use a basic address block consisting
of: Address1, Address2, Address3, City, State, and Zip. This will
be more than enough to cover most of the United states, and can be
easily upgraded to a International database by adding a Country Field,
and a Country Zip Code field, remembering to use one or the other,
to keep the database efficient. |
| Done! |
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At
this point you have a pretty well formed database, that can be used
to keep your direct mailing lists efficient, and organized, but
as most databases do, you will probably have a few miscellaneous
fields at the end, I recommend 3 fields to be created for future
notes, or perhaps phone number, or email addresses. This is up to
the database designer to judge if these are appropriate for your
database.
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| If
your unsure if your database is correctly designed, we can provide
you with one, please download this: company_dbtitle.xls
(an excel spreadsheet) |
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