Hi,
I’ve been using EA as a UML diagramming tool for the last 3 years and I like it a lot. Lately, we where looking for a database modeling tool. I suggested we gave EA a try to see how it can handle this job. Another project team is also doing a similar trial period with Visio. In the end we will decide which one will become the official database modelling tool
So for I have been very pleased with EA and it has many advantages over Visio (EA generally handles the graphics much better than Visio does). EA also has some weak points, most of them relate to productivity issues and the lack of some user defined options. I listed each case in a (personal) priority order below.
1. The creation of a table’s columns is more time-consuming than it should. It requires a lot of mouse clicks. That could be avoided by letting the user add and edit directly in the columns grid instead. The column attributes that are the most commonly used are: name, type, size (where relevant), primary key and nullable. As a comparison, Visio is much faster when creating a lot of columns.
2. In the current version one has to manually create the foreign keys between to associated tables. Why not offer the possibility to “migrate” the PK of the target table to the source table if it is not present of associate them if they are present. Again, this would be a great productivity feature
3. A data model validation feature would be nice. It could help the designer spot missing elements. For example, it’s very hard to tell whether or not the FK have been set on any given relationship (especially if the association’s labels are hidden).
4. Let the user defines which prefix he wants to use for the foreign keys, primary keys, indexes, etc. For example, “UQ” is not a very common prefix and I have no way to change it to “UK” but to alter every unique key constraint (operation) in the model.
5. In the current version I had to select every association on every diagram individually and use the context menu to hide the labels. Instead, I’d like to be able to define how I want to view all the table associations in a global setting (setting it per diagram would be nice, but a global setting would be best).
6. It would be great to be able to define a column as an auto number in only one step. Also, the start value and the increment value could be both set to 1 by default (this value could even be user-defined).
Il also noted a bug while designing the data model
- If a UQ constraint (to “UK_XYZ” for example) in the operation form the name of the operation is changed in that window but not in the project explorer.
Thanks,
David
