How to Design a Database for Real-Time Reporting?

In today’s world, the ability to access and analyze information as it happens is important for organizations to make informed decisions and adapt to changing circumstances. Real–time reporting allows organizations to gain immediate insights from data, enabling them to identify issues as they occur, and enabling immediate responses and adjustments.

Real-time reporting requires careful planning, infrastructure investment and ongoing maintenance. In this article, we’ll walk through how to design a Relational database with the help of entities attributes and relationships between them.

Database Design for Real-Time Reporting

Real–time reporting allows organizations to gain immediate insights from data as it’s generated in the database. This enables productive decision–making, improved operational efficiency and a better customer experience. Configure the database or reporting tool to periodically query the database at set intervals and generate reports based on the retrieved data.

Utilize specialized databases designed for high-speed data processing and retrieval, enabling real–time reporting on frequently accessed data. Additionally, ensure data quality, design clear visualizations and implement user access control for effective real-time reporting. However, achieving real-time reporting requires careful design considerations.

Real-Time Reporting Features

1. Reporting Tools and Visualization: Selecting suitable tools to generate clear data is essential. Using various visualization techniques like charts, graphs and maps to represent data in a clear and visually appealing manner. Real-time reporting tools often provide dashboards that update automatically with the latest data. This feature allows users to Key Performance Indicators and monitor metrics as events happen, enabling quick reactions to issues.
2. Scalability: Ensure your chosen approach can handle potential increases in data volume and user demand. Implement high availability features to ensure continuous operation and data access even in case of system failures or outages.
3. Alert and Notification System: To prevent missing analytical changes, these systems can be configured to send alerts or notifications based on specific triggers. This proactive feature helps in managing by exception, focusing attention on potential issues. Receive immediate notifications by SMS or any other channels, ensuring analytical issues are brought to your attention promptly.
4. Data ingestion and Streaming: Capture data from various sources in real-time, including sensors, transactions, and user interactions. Using the technologies to ingest and process data in real-time, minimize the latency, and ensure the most up-to-date information is available.
5. Improved Decision Making: Gain immediate understanding from data, enabling real-time adjustments. Identify and capitalize on emerging opportunities as they become apparent in real-time data.
6. Communication and Collaboration: By sharing real-time reports and visuals with stakeholders, keeping them updated on progress which enhances communication. By providing a shared view of real-time data across teams and departments, enabling everyone to stay informed which enhances collaboration.

Entities and Attributes of Real-Time Reporting

1. User: Represents users of the system.

• USER_ID (Primary Key): It is a unique identifier for each user in this user table.
• USER_NAME: It describes users name for login.
• PASSWORD: It describes the users password.
• USER_EMAIL: It describes the users email address for communication.

2.Report : Represents different types of reports that can be generated.

• REPORT_ID (Primary Key): It is a unique identifier for each report in this report table.
• REPORT_NAME: It describes the content of the report.
• DESCRIPTION: It provides brief description of report.
• USER_ID: It is a foreign key(references USER_ID in the User entity).

3.Transaction: Represents financial transactions which are relevant to business operations.

• TRANSACTION_ID (Primary key): It is a unique identifier for each transaction in this transaction table.
• USER_ID: It is a foreign key(references USER_ID in the User entity).
• AMOUNT: It describes the financial amount of the transaction.
• STATUS: It describes the current status of the transaction.

4.Role: Represents the roles assigned to users.

• ROLE_ID (Primary Key): It is a unique identifier for each role in this role table.
• ROLE_NAME : It describes the name of the role.
• DESCRIPTION : It provides the brief description of role.

5.Data : Represents the actual data being reported on.

• DATA_ID (Primary Key): It is a unique identifier for each data in this data table.
• DATA_TYPE: It describes the type of the data.
• VALUE: It describes the actual value of the data.

6.Permission : Represents the permissions granted to roles for accessing reports.

• PERMISSION_ID (Primary Key): It is a unique identifier for each permission in this permission table.
• REPORT_ID: It is a foreign key(references REPORT_ID in the Report entity).
• ROLE_ID: It is a foreign key(references ROLE_ID in the role entity).

Relationships Between These Entities

1. User-Report Relationship:

• It shows the One-to-Many Relationship.
• A User can create multiple Reports.

2. Report-User Relationship:

• It shows the Many-to-One Relationship.
• Each Report is associated with one User .

3. Data-Report Relationship:

• It shows the One-to-Many Relationship.
• Data is related to Reports.

4. User-Transaction Relationship:

• It shows the One-to-Many Relationship.
• One User can generate many Transactions.

5. Permission-Role Relationship:

• It shows the Many-to-One Relationship.
• Each Permission is associated with one Role.

6. Permission-Report Relationship:

• It shows the Many-to-One Relationship.
• Each Permission is associated with one Report.

7. Role-Permission Relationship:

• It shows the One-to-Many Relationship.
• Each Role can have multiple Permissions.

ER Diagram for Real-Time Reporting

Er diagram for Real-time reporting

Entities Structure in SQL format

CREATE TABLE User(
USER_ID INT PRIMARY KEY,
USER_NAME VARCHAR(20),
PASSWORD VARCHAR(20),
USER_EMAIL VARCHAR(20)
);
CREATE TABLE Report(
REPORT_ID INT PRIMARY KEY,
REPORT_NAME VARCHAR(50),
DESCRIPTION VARCHAR(255),
USER_ID INT FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES User(USER_ID)
);
CREATE TABLE Transaction(
TRANSACTION_ID INT PRIMARY KEY,
USER_ID INT FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES User(USER_ID),
AMOUNT INT,
STATUS VARCHAR(20)
);
CREATE TABLE Role(
ROLE_ID INT PRIMARY KEY,
ROLE_NAME VARCHAR(20),
DESCRIPTION VARCHAR(255)
);
CREATE TABLE Data(
DATA_ID INT PRIMARY KEY,
DATA_TYPE VARCHAR(255),
VALUE INT
);
CREATE TABLE Permission(
PERMISSION_ID INT PRIMARY KEY,
REPORT_ID INT FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES Report(REPORT_ID),
ROLE_ID INT FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES Role(ROLE_ID)
);

Database Model for Real-Time Reporting

Real-time Reporting

Tips and Tricks to Improve Database Design

Designing an effective database requires careful consideration of several factors:

• Attributes: Define required attributes for each entity to capture required information.
• Data Types: Select the appropriate data type for each attribute and maintain precision.
• Relationships: Determines how entities relate to each other.
• Keys: Apply referential integrity with primary and foreign keys.
• Constraints: Implement constraints to ensure data integrity.
• Normalization: Cleans tables to minimize data redundancy and maintain data integrity.
• Backup: Implement robust backup.

Conclusion

Overall, designing a relational database for real-time reporting requires careful consideration of performance, scalability, and data integrity. By following best practices and continuously optimizing your database design, you can ensure that your real-time reports are accurate, reliable, and accessible when needed, enabling your business to make informed decisions quickly and effectively.After reading this article now you have good understanding of how to create relational database for real-time reporting with the help of Entity relationship diagram and database model.