Design progress check... anyone willing to give me a bit of direction?

[Rattykins]

My last post (first post to the forum!), a beginner plea for help, saw some helpful souls post a number of links on data normalization. Numerous articles have been read, albeit not fully digested, and I've delved headfirst into the world of relational databases.

Can I request a progress check?

Background:

I'm shooting to create a bilingual database of business segments for the purposes of translation. In my head, the user will enter a 4-digit stock ticker into a search box, and out will pop:

The analysts covering the stock in question, including their relevant contact information (full name, phone number, etc). In addition, all products, business segments, etc., associated with the firm associated with the 4-digit ticker will also be displayed. Stocks are, of course, incorporated into sectors (pharma, toys and media, etc.) which will also be incorporated.

I have attached my current data model, though it currently DOES NOT include any analyst information (and I'm a bit confused as to how to incorporate it)



Some notes/questions on the image attached:

*ProductID, BusinessSegmentID, SectorID, and DrugID are all auto numbers.

*I'm unsure as to whether (in the CoverageTbl) the SectorCode is "functionally dependent" on the TickerID. A Ticker identifies a single, unique company. The SectorCode isn't really dependant on the ticker, but rather is an indication of which family it belongs in. Is this a functional dependence problem or am I thinking about this wrong.

*I remain very uncertain how to incorporate the analysts. Most of their contact information will likely be contained in a single table, but given that two or more analysts will together cover a number of companies (tickerID's) we have a many-to-many relationship, no? Any hints as to how to proceed?

I apologize if anything is unclear or confused.

[orange]

What do the fields Name_E, Name_J represent?

Is Ethical Drugs really a subject or entity in your scope?
I don't care much for your Entity Names, but then again it's your model representing your business.
Sector and Segment are a little abstract, but as said before, it should be representing your business.

I think you might get some more insight on the model through a set of free video tutorials as below:

These free video tutorials describe the processes of data modelling, normalization and entity relationship diagramming. There are other videos, but this group is by the same presenter and covers an example situation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiVq8M5DBkk Logical data modeling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGMwuOtRfqU Candidate key

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiB-BKCzS_I Normalization

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ47btpjAhA Normalization example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3Wg2fZENK0 1st Normal form

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vji0pfliHZI 2nd Normal form

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH-QR7t-kMo 3rd Normal form

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1GaaGHHAqM E_R Diagramming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXAGQ8vmhCY ERD Part 2

The first few topics at this site are well worth the read.

http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/forum/topic238.html

Here is a link to a list of points re database design, if you want to skip the tutorials.
http://www.databaseanswers.org/approach2db_design.htm