Devry BIS245 Discussions Latest 2021 July (Full)

BIS245 Database Essentials for Business With Labs

Week 1 Discussion

Gathering Requirements and Choosing Database Solution

Why are databases important to business? How do databases generate sales and profits? What databases do you interact with, and how do they benefit you?

What is meant by requirements gathering, and why is it important to clearly define the data requirements of a database before creating it?

Microsoft Access is one of the most popular database platforms on the market. However, there are many competitors. Why do you think that Access is so popular? What are some of the other types of databases available?

Do you think that Access can serve as a corporate database solution, or is it strictly a personal database solution? What might be the difference between a personal and corporate database solution?

BIS245 Database Essentials for Business With Labs

Week 2 Discussion

Applying Design to Entity Relationship (ER) Modeling

When designing database tables, the difference between a good design and a bad design can be a few seconds in response time and several minutes. You may think that this is not a huge difference, but imagine waiting several minutes on a web page for your results to load. How long would you wait? A slow database can mean the loss of customers. So let's begin by discussing some of the common elements of tables and how you would approach the table design. What would you do to ensure that your page loads in a few seconds? Discuss the relationship types and how they affect your design.

What role does the entity-relationship (ER) diagram play in the design process? Discuss the different types of information represented in the ER diagram and the symbols used to represent them. How would you approach the diagramming process?

BIS245 Database Essentials for Business With Labs

Week 3 Discussion

Requirements Analysis and Conceptual Design (graded)

Describe some typical pairs of entities that you think might be common in business, and describe their relationships, whether many-to-many, one-to-many, many-to-one, or one-to-one. Explain why you think that a particular relationship applies to that pair of entities.

Why do you think organizing data into tables and relationships is a good way to design a database? How do related tables improve the accuracy of data in a database?

BIS245 Database Essentials for Business With Labs

Week 4 Discussion

Creating Queries From Woodcraft Database (graded)

For purposes of this discussion, assume that Woodcraft is an online store that sells wooden craft kits to churches, scouting organizations, and other groups that need crafts for children. Download the Week 4 Woodcraft Database (Links to an external site.) and save Woodcraft's database to your computer or space in our Lab environment. View the content and structure of the database, and then choose one of the questions that follow to answer.

Later in the week, you may answer a second or third question, but let's start off with everyone answering one at a time.

What kinds of queries would be useful to Woodcraft, assuming that it wants to improve its sales, relationship with its customers, or other aspects of its business? Describe what information you might want to select from the database in the form of a query, and list the specific columns and data that the query would produce. Assume that they have hundreds of customers, rather than the short list found in the database file.

Suggest additional tables and information that you would like to see in a database like this, the kinds of queries that it would facilitate, and how such queries would help the company improve its business goals of profitability, cost reduction, or other business strategies.

Using the Woodcraft database file, create some queries that use concepts found in the textbook, as well as this week's lab. Post a screenshot of your query design and result set in a Word document.

Research one new feature that you haven't studied as it relates to query generation, and show how you could use that feature to create a useful query. Use the Woodcraft database to showcase this query-generation technique and post it in this discussion.

BIS245 Database Essentials for Business With Labs

Week 5 Discussion

Creating Advanced Queries and Reports (graded)

Building from week 4 discussion, use Woodcraft Database for this discussion too and assume that Woodcraft is an online store that sells wooden craft kits to churches, scouting organizations, and other groups that need crafts for children. Download the Week 4 Woodcraft Database (Links to an external site.) and save Woodcraft's database to your computer or space in our Lab environment. View the content and structure of the database, and then answer the questions.

Using the Woodcraft database file, create some queries that use concepts found in the textbook, as well as this week's lab. Post a screenshot of your query design and result set in a Word document.

Create a sub query as learned in Chapter 6 and describe why you chose these attributes to query and post a screenshot of your query design.

BIS245 Database Essentials for Business With Labs

Week 6 Discussion

Creating and Using Forms and Reports

Forms in Access are like display cases in stores that make it easier to view or get the items that you want. Since forms are objects through which you or other users can add, edit, or display the data stored in your Access database, then why is the design of a form important?

Database reports provide us with the ability to further analyze our data, and provide it in a format that can be used to make business decisions. Discuss the steps that you would take to ensure that we create an effective report. What questions would you ask of the users?

BIS245 Database Essentials for Business With Labs

Week 7 Discussion

Integrated Applications

When a business/firm grows and has their data in different places and on different documents/spreadsheets, why is integrating data so important to the business/firm?

Why is data security important now more than ever? What are some of the steps that we can take to ensure that our database is protected and secure? How can you use user views to enhance security and restrict access?

BIS245 Database Essentials for Business With Labs

Week 8 Discussion

Reflection

Class, looking back over the Course Objectives for this course, what are you looking forward to learning more about throughout your education and career? Have you already been able to apply course concepts where you work?