Documenting Database Design

[cphelps48]

I have inherited responsibility for a number of Access databases and I would like to quickly understand the design of these.



Originally I was told that these databases were free standing with no links to other databases or relationships used. This has now been shown to be incorrect.

So my question is: What tool can I use to run against a database that will give me an understanding of a design of the databases so that I can support them them better and to assist with creating some documentation leading into migrating them into another database paltform (eg. SQL).

[ajetrumpet]

it'll probably be tough to find actual vb functions out there to do this. however, start with the db documenter. not sure where that's at in 03. but it should be there, maybe under tools or options.

that will give you all the dependencies, for one thing. Other than that, the best thing is to probably run the app and write down what you see. That's really all that's relevant anyway. If you want to document functional calls and such, it would probably take extensibility functionality to do or something like that. But not sure why that would be necessary anyway.

It is for me at my current company, but that's only because it's heavily oriented towards the military.

[orange]

I have inherited responsibility for a number of Access databases and I would like to quickly understand the design of these.

Originally I was told that these databases were free standing with no links to other databases or relationships used. This has now been shown to be incorrect.

So my question is: What tool can I use to run against a database that will give me an understanding of a design of the databases so that I can support them them better and to assist with creating some documentation leading into migrating them into another database paltform (eg. SQL).

There is an analyzer referenced on Crystal's site
http://www.accessmvp.com/strive4peac...nary/Index.htm

I have seen positive comments about its usefulness.

[cphelps48]

Ran the internal Documenter on a database and it produced a 5000+ page report. Thank goodness for CutePDF so I can save some trees!!!

In regards to the Analyzer on the Crystal site, I will assume that the 2K should be used against Access 2003 databases.