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RelationshipsERD Visualization

ERD Visualization

The Diagram view renders your data model as an interactive graph — every classified model as a card, every relationship as a line between two of them. It is where you check that the model you built is the model you meant, and where you trace the path a query has to travel to join two models.

Opening the Diagram

  1. Navigate to Relationships in the left sidebar
  2. Switch from Table View to Diagram

Understanding the Diagram

Model Cards

Each model appears as a card carrying:

  • The model name, with an icon for its kind
  • An entity-type badge — Parent, Related, Event, Realtime, or Unclassified — repeated as a coloured accent bar down the card’s left edge, so the type is readable from colour alone without reading the badge
  • The primary key, in monospace
  • The column count
  • No links, in amber, when the model participates in no relationship at all

Relationship Lines

A line runs from the from-model to the to-model, labelled with the relationship. Its direction is the direction you declared, which is what decides whether the pair reads as one-to-many or many-to-one.

ERD cardinality example showing a many-to-one relationship

Interacting with the Diagram

  • Pan — drag the canvas background
  • Zoom — scroll, pinch, or use the zoom controls in the corner
  • Fit to view — the fit control zooms so every card is on screen
  • Minimap — the panel in the corner shows where you are in a large diagram
  • Fullscreen — fills the screen; the canvas is otherwise capped inside the page. Esc leaves it.

Focusing

  • Click a card to focus it. Its relationships stay lit and the rest of the diagram dims.
  • When a model is focused, the toolbar spells out its lineage to the root parent as a chain of names with a hop count — the sequence a query travels, which is the thing people most often get wrong by tracing lines with their eyes.
  • Clear drops the focus and any filters.

Tracing a Join Path

With one model focused, shift-click a second one. The toolbar spells out the path between them as a chain of model names and a hop count — or says outright that the two are not connected, which is the answer you need before writing an audience that assumes they are.

Filtering

  • Find a model… searches by name
  • One chip per entity type, each with a count, filters the canvas to that type
  • Models in no relationship are hidden by default; the No links chip brings them back, and is the fastest way to find a model you classified and then forgot to connect

Rearranging

  • Drag a card to reposition it. The arrangement is saved in your browser, so it survives a reload — it is yours, not the workspace’s.
  • Reset layout discards what you have dragged and re-runs the automatic layout.

Creating a Relationship by Dragging

Hover a card and connection handles appear on its edges. Drag from one card to another to open the new-relationship form with the two models already filled in. Realtime event cards are not warehouse models, so a drag onto or from one does nothing.

Best Practices

  • Check for “No links” — a classified model connected to nothing cannot be reached from an audience, and looks identical to a connected one until you turn the chip on
  • Trace before you build — shift-click the two models an audience needs to span, and confirm there is a path
  • Filter on large models — with a dozen models the type chips are faster than reading the whole canvas
  • Review after changes — after adding a relationship or reclassifying a model, open the diagram and confirm it looks the way you meant

Next Steps

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RelationshipsOverview