John begins by analyzing the product and product group hierarchy. He organizes the products by their product group and product groups by their parent product group. The sheer volume of data and the relationships contained within the data are difficult to visualize, so John lists the categories and sees if there are relationships between them.

The following table (which contains data from the Marketing department) shows an example of how John might organize his data.

ProdGroup		ProdGroup		ProdGroup		Product
ProdNumber	Description	ProdNumber	Description	ProdNumber	Description	ProdNumber	Description
ALL	All Products	100	Mice + Pointers	120	Mice	120-0001	Laser Mouse
						120-0002	Nano Cordless Laser Mouse
						120-0003	Cordless Optical Mouse
						120-0004	Nana Cordless Laser Mouse II
						120-0005	Laser Mouse for Notebooks
						120-0006	Revolution
						120-0007	Rechargable Cordless Mouse
						120-0008	Cordless Optical Mouse II
		200	Keyboards	210	Keyboards	-	-
				220	Keyboard and Mice Combos	-	-

The table shows the data that will be stored in the Products BO. This is the BO to convert (or create) in

HM

. The table shows Entities, such as Mice or Laser Mouse. The relationships are shown by the grouping, that is, there is a relationship between Mice and Laser Mouse. The heading values are the Entity Types: Mice is a Product Group and Laser Mouse is a Product. This Type is stored in a field on the Product table.

Organizing the data in this manner allows John to clearly see how many entities and entity types are part of the data, and what relationships those entities have.

The major category is ProdGroup, which can include both a product group (such as mice and pointers), the category Product, and the products themselves (such as the Trackman Wheel). The relationships between these items can be encapsulated in a relationship object, which John calls Product Rel. In the information for the Product Rel, John has explained the relationships: Product Group is the parent of both Product and Product Group.