Methods and systems for designing and building a schema in an on-demand services environment

• US 8,914,422 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2011
• Issued: 12/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/19/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Hale, Shannon Patricia, Sundaravaradan, Barathkumar, Lulewicz, Joshua, Appler, Justin, Musthyala, Kavitha, Li, Edward, McGee-Tubb, Cordelia, Giavelli, Luc Marcel, Roe, Joshua M., Wolverton, Shawna A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Truong, Dennis
• Application Number:
  US13/313,918
• Publication Number:
  US 20130046799A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,105 Days
• Field of Search: 707/790, 707/803, 707/805, 707/999.1, 707/601
• US Class Current: 707/805
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/211 Schema design and management
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/206 Drawing of charts or graphs

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for displaying a graphical representation of data objects of a schema using an online tool. In an embodiment, the online tool may be used to create or modify a schema. Modifying a schema may include adding or modifying or deleting data objects. Modifying data objects may include adding or modifying or deleting data fields. The online tool may be used to define relationships between data objects. In an embodiment, user permissions may be set for data objects. In an embodiment, the graphical representations of data objects may be selected and placed is a different location.

Claims

1. A method for defining a database schema comprising:

sending, from a host machine to a user machine, a graphical representation of a schema, the host machine having one or more processors and a memory system, the graphical representation including;

a plurality of graphical objects representing a plurality of database objects, each of the graphical objects representing a different one of database objects, and

at least two types of lines having graphically different appearances, each line connecting at least two of the plurality of graphical objects, a first type of line represents a master-detail relationship between a first and second database object and a second type of line representing a lookup relationship between a third database object and a fourth database object, the second database object inheriting at least one usage constraint defined by the first database object and the third database object including at least one field that receives its values from at least one field of the fourth database object,

receiving, at the host machine, user input from the client machine in the form of altering a graphical object of the graphical representation of the database schema;

altering the database schema in response to the input.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending, by the host computer, rendering information for rendering a display of the altered graphical representations of the database schema.

3. The method of claim 1, the altering of the database schema further comprises adding at least a database object by adding a graphical representation of the database object.

4. The method of claim 1, the altering of the database schema further comprises deleting at least a database table by deleting a graphical representation of the database table from a graphical representation of at least a portion of a database schema, the graphical representation of at least the portion of the database schema including multiple graphical representations of database tables, the graphical representation of at least the portion of the database schema being located on a graphical canvas.

5. The method of claim 4, the altering at least the database schema further includes adding at least a data field by at least adding a graphical representation of the data field to a graphical representation of the database table.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein sending the rendering information includes sending rendering information for at least rendering a rectangular box representing a database table.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein sending rendering information includes sending information for at least rendering the rectangular box including a rectangular region within the rectangular box representing a field.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

the sending of the rendering information for rendering a display of the graphical representation of the database schema including sending information for at least rendering the rectangular box;

the rectangular box including a rectangular region representing a field within the rectangular box.

11. The method of claim 1, the altering of the database schema further comprises setting user permission to access the database schema.

12. The method of claim 2, wherein the rendering information further comprises information for rendering a navigational map of the graphical representation of the schema with a portion of the navigational map highlighted, the portion of the navigational map highlighted being the portion of the graphical representation of the schema that is displayed on a graphical canvas, the scale of the navigational map being smaller than the scale of the graphical representation of the schema.

13. The method of claim 4, further comprises adding a schema element by dragging and dropping a corresponding graphical elements from a menu to the canvas.

14. A computer readable media storing one or more machine instructions, which when invoked carry out the method of claim 1.

15. A method of claim 1, the host system hosting a multi-tenant database.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein altering includes altering of the database schema including altering the relations between the two database objects.

17. The method of claim 1, the line representing the lookup relationship and the line representing the master-detail relationship appearing in the same graphical representations of a database.

18. The method of claim 1, each type of line having a different color.

19. The method of claim 1, the at least two types of line include a first type of line that is a solid line and a second type of line that is a dashed line.

8. A method for defining a database schema comprising:

receiving, at a host machine, user input for a change for a database schema from a client machine in the form of altering a at least one of a plurality of graphical objects element of a graphical representation of the database schema, the host machine including at least a processor system having one or more processors, and a memory system;

in response to the input, the processor system automatically altering the database schema in response to the input;

updating, by the host machine, the graphical representation of the database schema to graphically represent the at least one altered graphical object of the database schema;

sending, by the host machine, rendering information to the client machine for rendering a display of the updated graphical representations of the database schema, the rendering information including at least two lines having graphically different

a first type of line representing a master-detail relationship between a first database object and a second database object and

a second type of line representing a lookup relationship between a third database object and a fourth database object, the second database object inheriting at least one usage constraint defined by the first database object and the third database object including at least one field that receives its values from at least one field of the fourth database object.

9. A method for defining a database schema comprising:

receiving, at a host machine, user input from a client machine in the form of altering at least one of a plurality of graphical objects of a graphical representation of a database schema, the host machine having one or more processors and a memory system;

altering the database schema in response to the input;

updating, by the host machine, the graphical representation of the database schema to graphically represent the at least one altered graphical object of the database schema;

sending, by the host machine, rendering information to the client machine for rendering a display of the updated graphical representations of the database schema, the rendering information including at least two lines having graphically different appearances, each line connecting at least two of the plurality of graphical objects, a first type of line representing a master-detail relationship between a first database object and a second database object and a second type of line representing a lookup relationship between a third database object and a fourth database object, the second database object inheriting at least one usage constraint defined by the first database object and the third database object including at least one field that receives its values from at least one field of the fourth database object.