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Relational Database

Overseer uses a relational database to manage the many entities in the school information database.  This capitalizes on the natural linkages between data entities to provide powerful navigation tools within the software while avoiding duplicate key-entry of the same information via multiple screens.

For example, a family consists of children and adults. Some information, such as residential address and telephone number is stored under the family entity, other information such as date of birth and school enrolment history is stored under the child entity, while place of work, committee roles and job title are stored under the adult entity.  However, the relationships among family members are accessible in several ways.  From the Members tabsheet of the Family detail screen, children and adults may be added to a family; also child or adult information may be referenced directly from this screen by clicking the appropriate Details button. Conversely, family information can be referenced directly from the General tabsheet of the Child detail screen or Adult detail screen.

Students must be selected from the list of children in the Overseer database while staff members, bus drivers, committee members and alumni must all be selected from the available list of adults.  Once students are assigned to a class via a Class detail screen, all class information may subsequently be accessed via the relevant Student detail screen.  Teachers must be selected from available staff.  Teachers are linked to home-room classes via their home-room numbers.

The business practices of medical doctors are documented under medical/professional agencies (or organizations) which may have clientel (e.g. a child is the patient of a doctor).  At the same time, the child’s affiliation with that doctor (as a patient) will be displayed on the Affiliation tabsheet of the Child’s detail screen.  This is an example of the linkage which exists within Overseer between reciprocal entities.

Overseer uses hot-link buttons on screens to provide short-cuts to detail information on related entities.  Hot-links provide the mechanism by which users may gain indirect access to information.  The following are examples of hot-links for some key entities within Overseer.

Family detail screen hot-links:

• Adult:                          Adult detail information for adult family members
• Child:                          Child detail information for child family members
• Organization:             Organization detail information for organizations with which family is affiliated
• Group:                         Group detail information for groups of which the family is a member

Child detail screen hot-links:

• Family:                       Family detail information for child’s family
• Student:                      Student detail information for child
• School:                        School detail information for (non-local) school attended by child during enrolment period
• Adult:                          Adult detail information for relative of child
• Organization:             Organization detail information for organization with which child is affiliated
• Group:                         Group detail information for group of which the child is a member

Adult detail screen hot-links:

• Family:                       Family detail information for adult’s family
• Teacher:                      Teacher detail information, if the adult is a teacher in the local school as of the active date
• Work Contact:            Organization detail information for the adult’s primary employer, if currently employed
• Child:                          Child detail information for relative of adult
• Organization:             Organization detail information for an organization with which adult is affiliated
• Group:                         Group detail information for a group of which the adult is a member
• Committee:                 Committee detail information for a committee of which the adult is a member

Group detail screen hot-links:

• Child:                          Child detail information for group member
• Adult:                          Adult detail information for group member
• Family:                       Family detail information for group member
• Organization:             Organization detail information for group member

Committee detail screen hot-link:

·        Adult:                          Adult detail information for committee member

 

Organization detail screen hot-links:

• Staff Member:             Adult detail information for staff member of organization.
• Adult:                          Adult detail information for affiliated adult
• Child:                          Child detail information for affiliated child
• Family:                       Family detail information for affiliated family
• Group:                         Group detail information for group of which organization is a member

Student detail screen hot-links:

• Family:                       Family detail information for student
• Child:                          Child detail information for student
• Class:                          Class detail information for student’s class
• Parent Contact:          Adult detail information for student’s parent
• Emergency Contact:   Adult detail information for student’s emergency contact
• Med/Prof Contact:      Organization detail information for student’s medical or professional contact
• Church Contact:        Organization detail information for student’s church contact
• Pick-up Bus Route:    Bus route detail information for student’s pick-up bus route
• Drop-off Bus Route:   Bus route detail information for student’s drop-off bus route

Teacher detail screen hot-links:

• Adult:                         Adult detail information for the teacher
• Family:                       Family detail information for the teacher
• Class:                          Class detail information for any class in teacher’s home room
• Next of Kin:                Adult information for teacher’s next of kin
• Med/Prof Contact:      Organization information for emergency medical or professional contacts for teacher
• Church Contact:        Organization information for church contacts for the church with which the teacher is affiliated

Class detail screen hot-links:

• Teacher:                      Teacher detail information for class’ home room teacher
• Family:                       Family detail information for family of highlighted student in class
• Child:                          Child detail information for highlighted student in class
• Student:                      Student detail information for highlighted in class

Bus Route detail screen hot-links:

• Driver Contact:          Adult detail information for principal driver of bus
• Alt Driver Contact:    Adult detail information for alternate driver of bus
• Student Contact:        Student detail information for any student on the bus route

Download the Overseer Database Overview for additional information about the Overseer relational database.