ER Tools - perhaps OT

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ER Tools - perhaps OT

Edvard Korsbæk

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December 21, 2016 at 10:19 pm

#324142

As a part of filing a DB, I wil l have to make an ER diagram on an almost undocumented DB with +100 tables including descroption of all fields
Of cause I can begin with publisher, but I am sure there must be better tools out there.
Perhaps OT here, but it's a SQL db, and i cannot find any better place to ask.
Best regards
Edvard Korsbæk

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kevaburg SSCoach Points: 18131 More actions · Answer 1

Edvard Korsbæk (12/21/2016)
As a part of filing a DB, I wil l have to make an ER diagram on an almost undocumented DB with +100 tables including descroption of all fields
Of cause I can begin with publisher, but I am sure there must be better tools out there.
Perhaps OT here, but it's a SQL db, and i cannot find any better place to ask.
Best regards
Edvard Korsbæk

SQL Server has a diagramming tool built-in and it can be accessed when you expand the list for each database. It isn't an ER diagram but returns the relationships within the database.

If you are documenting a database almost from scratch then it is a good place to start.

TheSQLGuru SSC Guru Points: 134017 More actions · Answer 2

Some of the versions of Visio can do ERDs by reverse engineering an existing database. I know they removed the functionality from some versions though so be sure to check if you go that route.

ERStudio from Embarcadero is the best that I have worked with, although pricey.

If you just need some documentation though, without the actual pretty model, check out RedGate's SQLDoc.

Best,
Kevin G. Boles
SQL Server Consultant
SQL MVP 2007-2012
TheSQLGuru on googles mail service

kevaburg SSCoach Points: 18131 More actions · Answer 3

TheSQLGuru (12/22/2016)
Some of the versions of Visio can do ERDs by reverse engineering an existing database. I know they removed the functionality from some versions though so be sure to check if you go that route.
ERStudio from Embarcadero is the best that I have worked with, although pricey.
If you just need some documentation though, without the actual pretty model, check out RedGate's SQLDoc.

Innovator is also a good product although Visio is my preference.....

From my perspective though the OP is starting the documentation from scratch, the reason I suggested he looks at how it is built before looking at the objects from an ER perspective.