Data Flow Diagrams & Computer-based Storage

Data Flow Diagram (DFD)

A graphical representation of the flow of data in an organization

Data sources and destinations; also known as data sinks. These are the people and organizations that send and receive data

Data flows; the flow of data into or out of a process

Transformation processes; also known as bubbles

Data stores (data storage)

Context Diagram

The highest level DFD; a summary-level view of a system that shows its inputs, destinations, outputs, sources, and data processing system

Entity

Anything about which an organization wants to store information, like a customer, employee, inventory item, etc.

Attribute

A property, identifying number, or characteristic of interest of an entity

Field

The part of a data record where the value of a particular attribute is stored

Record

A set of fields that describe specific attributes of an entity, like all payroll data for a single employee

Data Value

The actual value stored in a field, describing the attribute of an entity

Transaction File

A file that contains the individual business transactions that occur during a specific fiscal period

Batch Processing

Accumulating transaction records into groups or batches for processing at a regular interval. These records are often sorted into some sequence before processing.

Application Programming Interface (API)

A structured interface that allows one system to interact with another system offering a data service to other systems