An alternative approach to normalizing data
In the previous section, we normalized one report. In real life, there will be a multitude of reports, screens, and forms to analyze. A lot of them will use the same columns. To create a complete database schema, we need to analyze and normalize all of them. For now, let's assume that there is a second report, Project Progress, that we need to normalize. You can see the report in Figure 3.13:
Figure 3.13 – Project progress
We could go through all the formal steps for this report as we have done for the first report. Instead, we will use an alternative approach. This method sort of involves combining entity analysis and normalizing data. In real life, experienced database designers do not go through all the formal steps. Some even say that we no longer normalize nowadays, but not doing the formal steps explicitly doesn't mean you are not applying the underlying theory.
Step 1
The first step to...