Data Model Design: Relationships Between Orders, Customers, Suppliers, and Employees

Correct Answer: E

As a Solution Architect, you need to understand the business processes and how these processes are reflected in a data model.

The first step is to evaluate the use of out-of-the-box Dataverse tables and relationships for the company's business processes and needs.

If the out-of-the-box data solutions are not enough, you can create custom tables and relationships.

Dataverse defines the two types of relationships between tables: One-to-Many (1:N) and Many-to-Many (N:N).

A One-to-Many relationship is a Parent-Child relationship, like between a customer and multiple orders.

One customer can have several equipment orders.

The customer record in a Customers table will be related to the many records in the Orders table.

It is a One-to-Many relationship for a customer record.

For the related order record, this relation is Many-to-One (N:1)

A Many-to-Many relationship is when multiple records from one table relate to the multiple records in another table and vice versa, like a relationship between suppliers and Equipment World employees that process the orders.

Each employee can process the equipment from multiple suppliers.

Each supplier works with multiple people who process their equipment.

The person record in an Employees table will be related to the multiple records in the Suppliers table.

And a supplier record in the Suppliers table will be related to the multiple records in an Employees table.

It is a Many-to-Many relationship for a person and a supplier records.

When users create a Many-to-Many relationship, the Dataverse creates a specific hidden intersect matching table between the two tables' records.

All other options are incorrect.

For more information about the Dataverse types of table relationship, please visit the below URLs:

In designing the data model for Equipment World, we need to consider the relationships between the entities in their current Excel spreadsheets. From the description given, there are three entities: Customers, Suppliers, and Orders. The Orders table contains information about customer orders and the company's employees handling the order.

Based on the nature of the relationships between the entities, we need to determine the appropriate cardinality of the relationships. The cardinality refers to the number of instances of one entity that can be associated with a single instance of the other entity.

Between Customers and Orders, the relationship is Many-to-One (N:1). This is because many orders can be placed by a single customer. However, a single order can only be associated with one customer. Therefore, the Orders entity will have a foreign key to the Customers entity.

Between Suppliers and Employees, the relationship is One-to-Many (1:N). This is because one employee can process many orders, but each order can only be processed by one employee. Therefore, the Orders entity will have a foreign key to the Employees entity.

Between Orders and Customers, the relationship is Many-to-One (N:1). This is because many orders can be placed by a single customer. However, a single order can only be associated with one customer. Therefore, the Orders entity will have a foreign key to the Customers entity.

Between Orders and Employees, the relationship is Many-to-One (N:1). This is because many orders can be processed by a single employee. However, a single order can only be associated with one employee. Therefore, the Orders entity will have a foreign key to the Employees entity.

Based on the above, the appropriate answer is option B. Many-to-One (N:1) and One-to-Many (1:N).