Data Base Development work

1. DB Development work for Association
of General Contractors
5394 Engineering Database Design
Fall 2011, Dr. Weihang Zhu
Project team: Vaibhav Chauhan, Fatemeh
Hosseinzadehdastak, Ashish Patel

2. Presentation Outline
1. Project Description
a) What is the objective of your database?
b) Who is your customer?
c) What is the requirement from your customer?
d) Has your application been reviewed and approved by your customer?
e) What have you done for the project overall?
2. Overview description of the system’s operation and workflow
3. E-R Diagram
4. Relational Schema
5. Lists of the detailed Database Structure
a) Tables
b) Queries
6. Technical problems
7. Conclusions and future work
8. Acknowledgment
9. References

3. Project Description -
Objective
O Provide an application that can be used by
the customer to meet their business needs
efficiently, and in a robust manner.
O To challenge ourselves further, we parsed
the customer’s existing, unstructured data
(found to be in first-normal form), into SQL
commands.

4. Project Description -
Customer
O For this project, we reached out to a local
membership-based trade organization that has
national presence.
O The Association of General Contractors founded
in 1918, and currently boasts approximately
33,000 member firms.
O Our customer, AGC of Southwest Texas, was
charted in 1940 and currently has 278 member
companies. The AGC’s Director, Mike White, is a
believer in adopting technology in the
construction industry.

5. Project Description - Requirements
The member companies of the AGC pay an annual membership fee, resulting the
AGC’s need to track payment dates, and use this information to generate
a) An accurate list of current members (for the dissemination of
information to members only),
b) A list of pending membership expirations based on last-payment
date,
c) A member’s payment activity, and lastly
d) A list of inactive memberships .
Additionally, the AGC wanted the capability to search their database by
a) Individual name
b) Telephone number
c) Fax number
d) UCI type: Each company in the database is associated with one or many
UCI codes that detail the specialties of that company. For example, HB
Nield & Sons features UCI codes of 22222, 22234, 23423, 23425,
meaning they specialize in various electrical skills.

6. Project Description - Customer
O Mr. White commissioned similar work in the recent past.
O Because of the low quality of this previous work and a lack of
documentation, the database was never used by the AGC’s
employees. They returned to their Excel spreadsheets.

7. Before
SELECT Contacts.Company, Contacts.Categories
FROM Contacts;
Only one Contacts
Query and one Table!
Cost AGC Paid to Private Contractor in 2009: $1,500.00

8. Membership Management
O 90% Customer Relationship Management
(CRM with membership and transaction
logging).
O 10% Other Contacts (non-member):
O Mayor of Beaumont
O President of Chamber of Commerce
O Public Figure 3
O Beaumont Hotel 1

9. Project Description – What we did!
1. After analyzing the raw database, we
provided the ER diagram
2. Relational Schema
3. Normalization
4. We provided the Access database
5. We developed a GUI build in Visual Studio
using VB.NET

10. Project Description - How we did it!
O We began the process by reviewing the 52 columns of the member
data provided initially by Mr. White, in first-normal form database.
O Next, the exclusion of some unnecessary and often unused fields such
as HomeTel#3 and CarPhone#, resulting in 26 columns exported to
a CSV.
O Then we imported the raw data into Python 3.2.2 to perform a parsing
operation that resulted in over 2600 SQL INSERT statements.
O Access cannot execute multiple SQL statements in a batch, and this
was unknown to us at the time. Fortunately, Dr. Zhu, suggested using
MySQL as a temporary storage space for the data, and exporting the
structured data for import into Access. This process was ultimately
successful, thanks to Dr. Zhu, and provides the AGC with a
significant time savings.
O We designed intuitive Windows forms that met the data entry and
query needs of the AGC. We faced many challenges at this step.

11. System Operation – How it Works!!
O Primarily, the solution is a “transaction-oriented ” database application, however it
must act as a “display-oriented” application to deliver customer value.
O When a member company pays their annual dues, and analyst enters a transaction
record with the current date.
SELECT MembershipID, OrganizationID, Expiration_date, [Last Payment Date]
FROM tblTransaction
WHERE (DateValue([Last Payment Date]) + 365 > NOW())
O On a monthly basis, the AGC must send out letters reminding their members to remit
membership dues. Using the “Pending expiration” query, they can quickly generate a
list of companies which need to be called, mailed, and emailed a reminder.
SELECT DISTINCT tblOrganization.Organization_Name, DateValue([Last Payment Date])+365 AS Expr1
FROM tblOrganization INNER JOIN (tblMembership INNER JOIN tblTransaction ON tblMembership.MembershipID =
tblTransaction.MembershipID) ON tblOrganization.ORGANIZATION_ID = tblTransaction.OrganizationID
WHERE (((DateValue([Last Payment Date])+365)<DateValue(Now())-30 And (DateValue([Last Payment Date])
+365)>DateValue(Now())-90));
O If a non-local builder is searching for a local underwater welder , they will
contact the AGC in search of a list of members that specifically mention the skill in
their profile. Our application permits the AGC to record those skills by adding them to
the member organization’s profile through the UCI code form and later return a list
of active memberships.

12. E-R Diagram

13. Relational Schema

14. Normalized Relation Tables

15. Access Table Relationships

16. Project Description – Review Process
O We regularly met or communicated by email with AGC.
O Each of the forms delivered in the resulting application
have been approved by him.
O He wants our team to continue development on the
application to meet the needs of the AGC in the future.
O Mr. White foresees changes in local legislation that will
require the AGC to retain additional data about their
members, create filters on this information, and invite
members based on their possession or fulfillment of
certain criteria.

17. Tables
O The resulting database features 14 tables, 10 of which are
potentially static, and 4 of which will be populated with new or
edited records as the AGC utilizes the application in their
operations.
O Category*, Fax_Numbers, Individuals, IndividualSkillsRelation,
JobTitle, Membership, Organization, Organization_Addresses,
Organization_Individual_Relation, Organization_UCI_Relation,
Skills, StatesList, Telephone_Numbers, Transaction,
UCIDescription
O *Category table was added by the customer very late in the
process, and is not reflected in the original ER and Relational
Table Diagrams.

18. Query 1
All memberships that will expire in 30-90 days (TodayDate-
(LastPaid+365 ) < 30)
SELECT DISTINCT tblOrganization.Organization_Name,
DateValue([Last Payment Date])+365 AS Expr1
FROM tblOrganization INNER JOIN (tblMembership INNER JOIN
tblTransaction ON tblMembership.MembershipID =
tblTransaction.MembershipID) ON
tblOrganization.ORGANIZATION_ID =
tblTransaction.OrganizationID
WHERE (((DateValue([Last Payment Date])
+365)<DateValue(Now())-30 And (DateValue([Last Payment
Date])+365)>DateValue(Now())-90));

19. Query 2
What are the email addresses for all active members
SELECT DISTINCT tblOrganization.[E-mail], DateValue([last
payment Date])+365 AS [Activate Status]
FROM tblOrganization INNER JOIN (tblMembership INNER
JOIN tblTransaction ON tblMembership.MembershipID =
tblTransaction.MembershipID) ON
tblOrganization.ORGANIZATION_ID =
tblTransaction.OrganizationID
WHERE (((DateValue([last payment Date])+365)>Now()));

20. Query 3
Inactive Members (where TodayDate-(LastPaid+365 ) < 0)
SELECT DISTINCT tblOrganization.Organization_Name,
DateValue([Last Payment Date])+365 AS Expr1
FROM tblOrganization INNER JOIN (tblMembership INNER
JOIN tblTransaction ON tblMembership.MembershipID =
tblTransaction.MembershipID) ON
tblOrganization.ORGANIZATION_ID =
tblTransaction.OrganizationID
WHERE (((DateValue([Last Payment Date])+365)>Now()));

21. Query 4
Query by UCI Code and Active
SELECT DISTINCT tbltelephone_numbers.[Phone#],
tblOrganization.Organization_Name, tblOrganization.[E-mail],
tblOrganization_UCI_Relation.[UIC code], DateValue([Last Payment Date])
+365 AS [activate status]
FROM ((tblOrganization INNER JOIN tblOrganization_UCI_Relation ON
tblOrganization.ORGANIZATION_ID = tblOrganization_UCI_Relation.
[Organization_ID]) INNER JOIN tbltelephone_numbers ON
tblOrganization.ORGANIZATION_ID =
tbltelephone_numbers.Organization_ID) INNER JOIN tblTransaction ON
tblOrganization.ORGANIZATION_ID = tblTransaction.OrganizationID
WHERE (((tblOrganization_UCI_Relation.[UIC code])=[?]) AND
((DateValue([Last Payment Date])+365)>Now()));

22. Query 5
Query by Company Name, Telephone, FAX, or Address
SELECT tblOrganization.Organization_Name, tblOrganization.[E-mail],
tbltelephone_numbers.[Phone#], tblFAX_Numbers.[FAX#]
FROM (((tblFAX_Numbers INNER JOIN tblOrganization ON
tblFAX_Numbers.Organization_ID = tblOrganization.ORGANIZATION_ID)
INNER JOIN tblOrganization_Addresses ON
tblOrganization.ORGANIZATION_ID =
tblOrganization_Addresses.Organization_ID) INNER JOIN
tbltelephone_numbers ON tblOrganization.ORGANIZATION_ID =
tbltelephone_numbers.Organization_ID)
WHERE (tblOrganization_Addresses.ZIP_Code = ?) OR
(tbltelephone_numbers.[Phone#] = ?) OR (tblFAX_Numbers.[FAX#] = ?)

23. Query 6
Query by Individual Name
SELECT tblOrganization.Organization_Name, tblOrganization.WEBSITE,
tblOrganization.[E-mail], tblOrganization.Category_ID,
tblMembership.JoiningDate, tblMembership.Billing_Information,
tblTransaction.Expiration_date, tblTransaction.[Last Payment Date]
FROM ((((tblIndividual INNER JOIN tblOrganization_Individual_Relation ON
tblIndividual.Individual_ID =
tblOrganization_Individual_Relation.Individual_ID) INNER JOIN
tblOrganization ON tblOrganization_Individual_Relation.Organization_ID =
tblOrganization.ORGANIZATION_ID) INNER JOIN tblTransaction ON
tblOrganization.ORGANIZATION_ID = tblTransaction.OrganizationID) INNER
JOIN tblMembership ON tblTransaction.MembershipID =
tblMembership.MembershipID)
WHERE (tblIndividual.First_Name = ?) OR (tblIndividual.Last_name = ?)

24. Technical Difficulties!!!!
The storage of new information
OFirst, we attempted to programmatically access the database , yet
often received an error (“passing null values”) when executing the UPDATE
command.
OAs an alternative, we created a newRow object and when calling the
datatable.Rows.Add(NewRow) function, we experienced a different error.
OSome of the errors we received when attempting to programmatically add
and edit data where similar to these:
O “The record cannot be deleted or changed because table
'tblFAX_Numbers' includes related records.”
O “An INSERT INTO query cannot contain a multi-valued field.”
O “Reference to a non-shared member requires an object reference.”
OInstead, we used Visual Studio TableAdapters to maintain the Connection
objects. The simplest successful implementation used the
TableAdapterManager that was automatically created when dragging a
table node from the Data Sources onto a form in Design View.

25. Technical Difficulties - Python
O We took a “crash course” in Python 3.2.2 using
resources such as docs.python.org and free training
videos readily available on YouTube.com.
O We abandoned sub-projects such as parsing the UCI-
Organization relation.
O cursor positioning,
O reading lines versus characters
O character substitutions
O However, we did successfully generate approximately
2600 lines of SQL INSERT statements using the Python
environment.
O Access has no method for batch processing
these statements, and thanks to Dr. Zhu, we were
able to import the large volume of data into our
application

26. The Number of Tables and Forms
 18 Tables
 19 Forms
 115 Button

27. Screenshot 1 - Welcome

28. Screenshot 2 – AUD Org

29. Screenshot 3 – Individual

30. Screenshot 4 - Membership

31. Screenshot 5 – Query

32. Screenshot 5 – Query

33. References
O MSDN
O Python.org
O Text Processing with Python
O Developing Web-Enabled Decision Support
Systems
O Sourcecodester.com
O Stackoverflow.com
O YouTube.com – Python Basics, Ep1-4, by
ZJunaideen
O http://www.penzilla.net/tutorials/python/fileio/

34. Conclusions & Future Work
O First, the challenges we faced, and the days we endured trying
to answer questions from hundreds of blogs and web-how-to’s
showed us how prevalent and version-specific Visual Studio
and Access are as development environments.
O How much having an ER diagram and the relational tables can
help us. The practice of normalization can help us to resolve
clear relationships between tables and distill binary and
ternary relationships, resulting in efficient data storage and
makes complex queries more stable.
O We fully expect the AGC to demand 100% functionality, and
while we feel we are technically able to deliver, we will require
outside assistance.
O Future development projects in Objective-C and Java this
winter.

35. Acknowledgment
O The teammates for their many 4am nights and dedication to
understanding hierarchical data stability, database connections,
parsing, creating SQL statements in-code, and teamwork.
O Like to acknowledge the patience of Mike White, the Director of the
AGC for his co-operation and willingness to provide his time and
experience as we learned the business processes involved in operating
a membership-based organization.
O Dr. Zhu for his lectures and for providing us with the benefit of his
experience. We would especially like to thank him for his attention and
assistance in solving problems we faced with executing batch
commands output by Python in MySQL, and importing the resulting
data into Access.
O We would like to thank the rest of the class for their communication
and assistance throughout the process. Learning from your challenges
and solutions gave us a competitive motivation, but helping each other
solve problems made us feel our class has the potential to create great
solutions.