CA PMA Chargeback Overview › CA PMA Chargeback Relational Characteristics

CA PMA Chargeback Relational Characteristics

CA PMA Chargeback uses relational concepts to create and manipulate data in its database. These characteristics ensure the following:

• Centralized data storage and management
• Eliminate the need for multiple products to process the same data
• Allow data to be shared across products

By centralizing data, redundancies in data collection, processing, and storage are eliminated.

Relational database structure is basically a simple matrix of records (rows) and fields (columns). All CA PMA Chargeback data is stored in tables that possess the following characteristics:

Column

A column is the vertical component of a table. Columns are used to describe an indivisible unit of data. Each column has a name and a specific data type, such as character or integer. While the order of columns in a table is fixed, there is no conceptual significance to this order. Columns are frequently referred to as fields.

Row

A row is the horizontal component of table. A row is a sequence of values, one for each column of the table. Each row contains the same number of columns. Rows are frequently referred to as records.

Note: You insert and delete rows, whereas you update individual columns. Furthermore, a table can exist without any rows, but not without any columns.

Tables are two-dimensional, they consist of a matrix of information composed of rows and columns:

• Depth is the number of rows within a table.
• Width is the number of columns within a row.

The CA PMA Chargeback database is made up of two types of tables:

• Definition Tables: Contain primarily user-defined input that defines the actual CA PMA Chargeback processing environment and controls the logic of the system.
• Data Tables: Contain data produced by the application detailing the charges, and so forth.