A five-step technique exists, the Process Logic Analysis, to help think through the main processing logic, identifying entity, and relationship actions. The steps are:
Identify the primary entity type that is the focus of the process. Most processes deal with more than one entity type, but only one entity type is the true focus of that process. In the Login Golfer example, Golfer is the entity type that is the primary focus of that process.
Determine the entity action (create, read, update, or delete) to be taken on the primary entity type. In the Login Golfer example, it is to read it.
Walk the neighborhood means to look at all of the directly related entity types and determine if they are involved in this process. In our data model, Golfer lives in a small neighborhood. Golfer has one optional relationship to Scoring Record. Since the process, Login Golfer, is not involved with Scoring Record, there are no other actions or entity types required.
Things should happen in a logical sequence. For instance, you generally must read something first to update or delete it. Since Login Golfer only has one action, read, it is easy to sequence them. We read the golfer first.
Of all of the Golfers in our database, how are we going to choose the one we want? In many cases, it will be by an attribute of the desired entity type. In other cases, it will be by the entity type's relationship to another entity type, and then by an attribute of the related entity type. In the Login Golfer example, it is by the Golfer's User ID.
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