Most people deal with data that needs to be managed effectively on a daily basis. The owner of a supermarket needs to keep track of stock levels, an editorial manager needs to keep track of all publications and a hairdresser needs to manage his customers' appointments. Data plays a role in almost all professions. The best way to manage large amounts of information is in databases. But what is a database, what are the advantages of databases and why is a simple spreadsheet not enough in most cases?
Basics of databases
What is a database?
Basically, a database is nothing more than a logical collection of data. Logical because a database generally tries to bring order to the multitude of data. When we talk about data, we mean all kinds of information. Be it e-mail addresses, images, texts, numbers or any other conceivable type of data.
Types of databases
There are many ways to structure databases. Below we briefly explain the 5 types:
- Hierarchical database: The hierarchical database uses a ranking order to structure the data.
- Network database: The network database is similar to the hierarchical database, but it enables the subordinate data record to establish a connection with various superordinate data records, so that relationships are possible in both directions.
- Object-oriented database: Information is stored here in object form.
- Relational database: It is table-oriented, whereby each data record is linked to every other data record.
- Non-relational database (or NoSQL database): A No-SQL database uses a variety of formats such as documents, diagrams, etc., which offer great flexibility to a database design.
![Links are the great advantage of relational databases](https://seatable.io/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/hunter-harritt-Ype9sdOPdYc-unsplash-scaled-1.jpg)
Links are the great advantage of relational databases.
Advantages of databases
Now that you understand what databases are, you're probably still wondering: Why should I use a database? What makes a database so much better than a list of information?
- Databases can easily handle multiple users.
- Databases are very reliable because they store information accurately.
- Databases avoid redundant information.
- Databases process information in a powerful and intelligent way.
- Databases are scalable.
- Databases can process huge amounts of information.
Even if you may not (yet) need to process huge amounts of information yourself, the advantages of databases are noticeable even with smaller amounts of data. The ability to process almost unlimited amounts of data means that a well-designed and well thought-out database can serve you for many years, as it virtually grows with you.
Where tables reach their limits in contrast to databases
1. lack of storage capacity
Imagine you have founded a company. In addition to your stationary specialist store, you have now decided to sell your goods online. Initially, you receive 2 to 4 orders a day. It is therefore fairly easy to record the order information in a spreadsheet. You start advertising online and your business suddenly booms. The volume of orders increases and you also decide to add even more goods to your range.
The sheer amount of information that you have to process every day can overwhelm a spreadsheet such as Excel. The spreadsheet becomes sluggish or freezes because the storage capacity is simply too small. One of the advantages of databases, on the other hand, as mentioned above, is that they have a much larger storage capacity and can easily grow with your company. They are therefore much more scalable than simple tables.
2. dealing with multiple users at the same time
As the order volume increases, so does the number of employees you need. In the first few months, you directly hire 5 new employees. Unlike most spreadsheets, databases are designed so that several users can work together at the same time. Simultaneous queries, searching and editing of the database is possible without any problems and without changes made by different people colliding with each other. This is ensured by mechanisms built into the database management systems.
You can also assign access and editing rights depending on the competence or responsibility of the relevant employee. Although newer cloud-based spreadsheets can solve some of the problems, they usually lack the granular access control that a database offers.
3. reliability and avoidance of human input errors
We are all human - and humans are known to make mistakes. The lack of schemas in a simple spreadsheet makes it more susceptible to human-induced input errors. In a database, on the other hand, there are certain rules that must be followed when users enter new data or make changes to existing data. For example, the character length of a numerical code can be predefined, which ensures that users do not forget any digits when entering account numbers.
Protection against accidental deletion of data is also built in. Databases can display change histories and undo the deletion of data with just a few clicks.
4. redundant data
You can take advantage of databases to make information easily accessible for future use. To guarantee this simplicity, you should ensure that each data unit only exists in one place. If the same data exists in different locations, this is redundant data. If a database has redundant data, this indicates poor database design.
The lack of redundancy not only guarantees clarity and simplicity, but is also useful if you make a change to the data. For example, the address of one of your customers might change. You don't have to change it for every order, you just need to change it once centrally in the customer database. As the orders are assigned a unique customer number, they all refer to the corresponding customer data record with the new address.
In some cases, however, redundancies also make sense. Especially with relational databases, such as in data warehouses or in the business intelligence sector, redundancies are deliberately built in to improve time-consuming SQL queries.
5. performance
As databases are there to facilitate the retrieval of data, they also enable the processing of this data in a very powerful way. You can create database queries and filter records to get answers to very specific questions. For example:
- Which region do customers who buy product XY come from?
- How often was product XY sold in December?
- How do customers get to my website?
You can save the results of such queries as a view that represents a subset of the database. These special views help certain groups of people who work with the database to find the data relevant to them more easily.
Databases are becoming more and more user-friendly
Whereas in the past you had to learn certain computer languages to implement the above-mentioned data queries, today there are many database systems such as SeaTable that are equipped with an intuitive graphical user interface. These allow even beginners to use databases immediately to improve their workflow.
How to easily build your own database
Do the benefits of databases make sense to you, but the idea of building your own database still puts you off? Good news: You no longer need any special knowledge even for that. With SeaTable, you can easily put together the building blocks of your own database without any programming knowledge.
Take a look at many examples of how to use SeaTable in our template library. Here you will find examples from the fields of marketing, sales, project management, software development, human resources and many more. We have even prepared a 7-part product introduction for you on our YouTube channel, where we guide you through the entire process of creating a SeaTable Base.
Take advantage of a database and say goodbye to confusing tables today! Click here to register for free!