Create Database

Overview

Create Your Database Table And Define Your Fields

WebDataPro Discontinued in iSchool Courses
WebDataPro has been discontinued as a software tool in iSchool courses, effective June 2022. The tutorials are being maintained here for benefit of INFO 289 e-Portfolio students who may wish to use materials created using WebDataPro as evidence.

1. Log into your WebData Pro site using your “admin” account and the password you selected during the sign-up process.

2. On the administration page, click on the navigation button labeled “Manage Table Configurations“.

Manage Table Configurations Page

3. Under Manage Table Configurations, click on the button labeled “Build New Table“.

Manage Table Configurations Page

4. When prompted, enter a Table Name of your choice. (Note: For the purposes of INFO 202, you can think of each table as a discrete database. For each table, you will define fields and then you will input records for each field. So, for each database project in INFO 202, you will likely be creating a separate table for each of your databases. The following example images show a database to collect evidence of competencies for an iSchool e-Portfolio.)

IMPORTANT: DO NOT use spaces, dashes or dots in your Table Name. These characters are not allowed. Instead, ONLY use alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) and use underscores to simulate spaces. Also, your table name can be up to 64 characters long.

So, for instance, if you will be creating a database for a collection of coins, you might choose to name your table something along the following lines:

mycoincollection

my_coin_collection

Group2_Coins

Jane_Smith_Coins_Assignment1

5. After selecting your Table Name, you will be taken to a screen where you can define your fields (i.e. your database structure). Click on the button labeled “Insert field below selection“.

Modify Fields Page

6. Next, enter the name for the new field.

Field Name Entry

IMPORTANT: DO NOT use spaces, dashes or dots in your field name. These characters are not allowed. Instead, ONLY use alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) and use underscores to simulate spaces. For instance, if the field will contain a patron’s last name, then you could use either ” lastname” or “last_name” or “Last_Name”.

7. FIELD DEFINITIONS:

Display Type Entry

     Display Type: This defines how data will be displayed on the search/query page:

For fields where searchers need to be able to enter a search term of their choice, select “Textbox”. IMPORTANT NOTE: Textbox fields are term-indexed only. Meaning the searcher must enter the full and exact value in order to match records. If you require word (keyword) indexing for a field, then use the “Comment” type instead, which provides full-text indexing for the field.

For fields where searchers will select a single value from a drop-down menu containing a list of pre-determined values, select “List”.

For fields that will contain large amounts of text (for instance, an article abstract), select “Comment”. The Comment type provides full-text indexing for the field. If you need a searcher to be able to query the field by keyword, then use the Comment type instead of Textbox.

The “Checkbox” type is specialized. It displays a single checkbox for that field. Meaning the searcher can either select the checkbox, or leave it unselected. This field is specialized and only useful in situations where a field is used to obtain an “on or off” response.

TEXTBOX:

     Maximum Character Length: Enter the length of the field (total number of characters allowed).

     Data Type: Select the data type for the field. In most cases, Text will probably be the most appropriate selection. If the field is an integer or decimal number, then select Number.

     Required: Choose whether or not this field is a required field. If required, searchers must enter or choose a value for that field.

CHECKBOX:

If you select the Checkbox display type, you will not need to choose any additional parameters at this time.

LIST:

For lists, you must select one of the following two options:

a. Use a simple list of values (Recommended)

b. Get values from a table

List Type

For the time being, we strongly recommend that you use the “simple list of values” option. You will then be able to enter a comma-separated list of all of your values for that field.

The second option (Get values from a table) requires more advanced setup. Documentation will eventually be provided, but for now, we recommend that you use the “simple list of values”.

c. Next, you’ll be asked to enter all of the values for your list, with each value separated by a comma.When you enter your comma-separated list of values,do not include any spaces before or after the commas (e.g. green,blue,red AND NOT green, blue, red)

Values

d. After entering your comma-separated list of values, you’ll also be asked to define the Data Type (in most cases, “Text” will be appropriate), the maximum number of characters, and whether it is a required field (for yes enter the full word ‘yes’ or ‘y’).Note: the Maximum Number of Characters for the field needs to be set to at least the size of the longest value in your list (for example: a list field with the colors ‘blue,yellow,turquoise’ will need to be set to at least 8 characters to accommodate ‘turquoise’)

e. Note: If you’d like to enter a list of dates, use the format mm/dd/yy; for a list of times, use the format 00:00:00 and 24 hrs (e.g. 5pm=17:00:00, 9:30am=09:30:00, 9:30pm=21:30:00).

8. ADD ADDITIONAL FIELDS: Repeat the above process and add as many fields as required for your database.

9. EDIT FIELDS: If you need to re-define any of your fields, select the field and click on the “Edit selected field” button.

10. After you have finished adding and defining your fields, click on the link at the bottom of the page labeled “Return to administration page“.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Under Manage Table Configurations, there is a button labeled “Relationships”. The Relationships tool is NOT USED in INFO 202. Students who use this tool do so at their own risk. No support will be provided, and if usage of the Relationships tool results in database corruption, you will need to restore your database from a backup or start from scratch.

Also see these instructions on how to backup your database.

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