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 |
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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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