The data model
Shipbuilder does not store forms. It stores things — a document, a revision, a space, a transmittal — and the connections between them. A screen is one way of looking at that network, and once you can see the network behind the screen, every page in the application reads the same way.
Three words carry the whole model:
| Example | ||
|---|---|---|
| Node | one thing, with an identity of its own | the fire control plan; its rev. B; fish hold no. 2 |
| Relationship | a named link from one node to another | rev. B is visible in fish hold no. 2 |
| Property | a value that belongs to one node | rev. B’s status, date, reason for change |
The model is strict about what may connect to what, and how many times — a document may have any number of revisions but only one actual one, a space sits in one deck area, a comment belongs to the thing it was raised on. That strictness is what makes the data trustworthy: nothing can be filed against nothing, and a connection you did not make is one that is not there.
Document control, in one picture
The part of the model this training is about. Not everything — enough to see how the pieces you meet on the screens hang together.
Reading it:
- The ship is where things are. A deck contains deck areas, a deck area holds spaces, a space holds equipment; a zone groups spaces across decks — the machinery zone, the cargo zone. This is the structure an inspection report is filed against and a finding is pinned to.
- The register is what is documented. A document is of a type and has revisions; the revision is the dated issue, and which revision is current is a property of it, not a separate arrow. A revision has a file — the PDF you open — and shows spaces, which is how the RSW machinery room knows about its inspection report.
- The conversation is what was said, by whom. A transmittal sends revisions to people and organisations, brings back comments, files the e-mails around it and, when the recipient has signed, the signed copy. A comment is about the revision it was raised on — or about a space or a piece of equipment, when the finding is about the ship rather than the drawing — and carries who said it, when, and what was decided about it.
Everything else on the screens — cost codes, disciplines, roles, space types, equipment types — is the same idea again: a thing, connected.
Where you see it on a screen
A detail page is not a form somebody designed. It is the node, then its relationships, then its properties:
- The first block is the node and its properties — active, number, name, who created it — with the things it is connected to one-to-one beside them (its cost code, its originator, its type).
- Every grid after it is one relationship: Shows spaces, the revisions, the comments. A row in one of those grids is another node, and its underlined value is the way to open it.
- The tabs are the relationships that need the whole width — the revisions, the comments, the transmittals.
So when you cannot find something on a page, ask which kind of thing it is. A property is in the first block. A connection has a grid, or a tab. And if it is in neither, it belongs to a different node — follow a link to get there.