Structure

The structure of a model is made up of one or multiple lists and the associations between them. For example you may have an Organisation list mapping out the organisation structure and departments and an Employee Types list mapping out the roles in that company. Then you can associate employee types to the relevant departments.

Organisation (Departments)

Employee Types

  • Head Office

    • Sales

    • Procurement

    • HR

    • Finance

  • Warehouse

    • Store

    • Delivery

  • Manager

    • Senior Manager

  • Individual Contributor

    • Officer

    • Person

    • Driver

Looking at the Organisation list above we can associate the Employee Types against the departments in the organisation. So we can have a Sales Manager, Finance Manager or Delivery Driver. In effect we can combine these two lists to build the structure of a model.

  • Head Office

    • Sales

      • Manager

      • Person

    • Procurement

      • Manager

      • Officer

    • HR

      • Manager

      • Officer

    • Finance

      • Manager

      • Officer

  • Warehouse

    • Store

      • Person

    • Delivery

      • Driver

These associations between lists make the structure of the model a powerful and flexible tool. Once you have configured the associations you can then pivot the structure to look at it from the point of view of any list. For example you may want to see Employee Types by Department or Department by Employee Types.

In the scenario above we could determine which departments had Drivers or Offices without digging through every department.

  • Manager

    • Head Office

      • Sales

      • Procurement

      • HR

      • Finance

  • Individual Contributor

    • Officer

      • Head Office

        • Procurement

        • HR

        • Finance

    • Person

      • Warehouse

        • Store

      • Head Office

        • Sales

    • Driver

      • Warehouse

This is one example of how you could choose to model these lists. It's also important to take into account the context of your model. How you use a model and what you want out of it will determine how you design the lists and the structure of a model.

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