Business computing Databases 14 December 2004

The course is about information treatment The objective of the course Business computing is to gain some basic proficiency with the main information treatment software of MS Office To gain proficiency with Word Excel PowerPoint Access (to a smaller extent) MS Explorer

Information treatment Word : a software to prepare letters and reports, to transmit information Excel : a software to make simple calculations, and display them in a useful manner PowerPoint : simple slides to present a story line Access : (a software to create databases) to store, retrieve and display strongly STRUCTURED informatio Access is the core of the course Business computing

The work of managers Firm’s managers deal with information and communication That’s why they must be familiar with NTIC (New Technologies in Information and Communication) Managers do not operate machines (Even on the shopfloor in modern plants most of the work has to do with information)

The work of middle-managers Middle managers receive information, treat it, and present it to the decision makers (the so-called « top executives ») And they implement plans, that is use communication to make other people do things according to plans : either suppliers and clients, or workers in the firm.

Type of information we deal with Unstructured information : (typically) the selling speech of salespeople The speech to motivate a team Information about competitors Structured information : Accounting information Market research Production plans CRM, and SCM… Information systems (sets of large databases) Escem’s information system is named « Alienor »

General tendancy toward structuring information A sale team is more efficient if it has PROCEDURES as to how to approach prospects, discuss with them, etc. Human Resources also tries to implement procedures in the way to deal with the employees Even R&D dept try to apply procedures on testing new products and technologies

Balance between procedures and creativity Modern large firms constantly try to maintain a balance between specifying precisely what procedures the middle-managers should follow, and leaving them a margin of creativity The same is true in the Army In fact there are many similarities between a firm and a military organisation

Databases and structured information Firms deal a lot with structured information Accounting information is highly structured : accounts, values credited, values debited, etc. All this is kept in an accounting system that is very much like a database Simple accounting softwares are built with Excel in the background, and more elaborate ones with a big database in the back Production plans, and reports, and more generally speaking production softwares deal with highly structured information (to pilot assembly plants) Banks deal with structured information Sales dept too

What is structured information ? It is a mass of data that can be viewed as elements with the same pattern It is the extension of a shoebox with cards in it, and on each card some information (with the same structure) about the element covered by that card Examples : Personal contacts Cooking recipes A card collection on football players Prospects Employees Etc.

A very basic database A very basic database is equivalent to a shoebox, with cards in it, and on each card the same structure of information for the element corresponding to that card Example : football player collection Lastname Firstname Date of birth Club Club coach Club address Picture Position in the field Price at last transfer Past history of clubs

Vocabulary A simple database is equivalent to a Table (in Excel for instance) One card is called a Record (and in Excel, usually a Row) The container of one item of information on one card is called a Field Indeed a simple database can be organised into Excel (a row is a record, and a column corresponds to a field)

Let’s create a very simple database with Excel A row is a record about one player A column holds the information on one field The whole table is a simple « one-table » database Excel has some simple database functionalities

The basic concepts in databases The simple Excel one-table database on soccer players allows us to illustrate the basic concepts in databases Distinguish the DATA and their DISPLAY All the data are always in the background (in tables), and we may want to display only part of them We can make REQUESTS on the data (simple requests, and elaborate requests) All these will be achievable in much more elaborate ways within Access

When do we want several tables ? If on my records for each player I want to record several fields of information on the Club of the player, it is a waste of time and a risk of error to repeat on each card all this information It is better to prepare another table concerned with Clubs, and establish some « link » between the player-table, and the club-table Excel cannot do that, we need a fullfledged database software (Access, 4D, dbIII, oracle, etc.)

Relational databases A database that implements this idea of not reproducing the same information on several cards, but of creating a separate table for this repetitive info is called « a relational database » (aka a multi-table database) When we have structured information to store into a multi-table database, the choice of structure is an art (there is no unique structure to store information into a relational database). A language (called UML) is sometimes used to create the architecture of the complex database.

A sales dept database The sales manager of a firm wants to keep track of many pieces of information concerning each selling act. It needs more information than what is recorded in Accounting : In accounting we record the date, the selling price ; if the sale was on credit we record the name of the debtor, and that’s it The sales manager needs more : name of client, region, name of salesperson, some information about the client, past history, past visits, etc. All this lead to CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Accounting is only one of the information systems of the firm Running a firm requires to have a performant accounting system (including cost accounting), but it is not enough We need information about the production process, which is not of a monetary nature We need information about our clients, suppliers, and competitors which is not kept within the accounting system In fact the job of an exective is to read many reports every day, and of course take decisions.

The example of bdcomptoir.mdb bdcomptoir.mdb is a school example built by Microsoft to illustrate the construction of an information system for the sales department of a food wholesaler. It records all sales activity over the past 3 years. What is the basic element in this database ? It is a line concerning one product in an order by a client. There are many side tables around it.

Let’s create a simple database with Access It will be a database of personal contacts Another example is a database of job search : for each search : the firm, the contact, the date, the discussion, etc. It’s a bit like a sales dept database

Structure Before entering data we need to build the structure of our database. Here it is going to be a simple table with seven fields