Excel Template

Data Structure

In the following the basic structure of the EXCEL tables is explained. An Excel Workbook contains the following different sheets. The sheets are divided into two groups.

(1) Ingest Data

(2) Lookup Data

Lookup Data

Lookup data represents inventory data that is used multiple times by different records and data sets. It is data that has been swapped out because it is to be used multiple times and should not be stored redundantly. This reduces the probability of errors, e.g typos.

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Ingest Data

Ingest data represent the actual data records.

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The Ingest data is further divided into two groups.

(1) The "metadata"-like framework

(2) The "actual" data Within this structure the actual data is attached to the metadata framework.

Ingest Data Structure

Every tables contain records (rows). Almost every table refers to other tables, e.g. every record in table Samples refers to a record in table Station. The terms Primary Key and Foreign Key are technical terms that are normally used in the data base world. Here the terms Primary Key and Foreign Key are interpreted more freely and illustrate the relationships between rows of different sheets in Excel tables.

(1) Primary Key (PK)

Each record (or row) of an Excel table to which another record of another Excel table refers has a unique name, the so-called Primary Key. Such a record is globally, uniquely identifiable.

(2) Foreign Key (FK)

The reference of a record in table T2 to another record in table T1 is made by specifying the targets Primary Key of T2 as a so-called Foreign Key in T1 (T1.FK=T2.PK). The following illustration shows these PK/FK relationships between the main CRITTERBASE tables. Attention: Entries in tables that don't have to be referenced by other tables do not need Primary Keys, e.g. Sediment and IndividualMeasure.

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