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3. Build your data model

Introduction

Now that your project is ready, you can start to build the data model.


beVault uses the Data Vault methodology to structure the data model. This methodology relies on 3 main entities: hubs, links, and satellites.

The hubs represent the business concepts (customers, products, …) and contain only the list of unique business identifiers of those objects.

The links represent the different relationships between the business concept (hubs).

The satellites are related to a hub or a link and contain descriptive information about the business concept’s object (hub) or the relationship (link). There are always related to only one source and therefore will be created during the source management and not in this section.

The data model that we will create, as well as the sources that we will use, are documented here: Tutorial Scenario - WonderCar
The model that we will create has been analyzed beforehand:

image-20260416-142910.png

Build the data model

  1. Click on Build

  2. Then Graph

  3. Select “All enties” or “Blank graph”

  4. image-20261021-115724.png


Create hub

Let's create the first two hubs, employee and shop, together.

  1. Right-click an empty area of the canvas.

  2. Select Create hub.

    image-20261021-120121.png

  3. Click the draft hub and select Create.

    image-20260416-143142.png

  4. Complete the hub creation form:

    • Enter the business name of your hub

    • Enter the technical name.

    • Set the business key length to 255.

    • Set the business key case to case insensitive.

      image-20260806-140304.png

  5. Click Save.

The hub is now created and available in the graph.

Repeat these steps to create the shop hub.

Now that both hubs have been created, create the shop_employee link between employee and shop.

  1. Select the connection port on the employee hub.

  2. Drag the connection to the shop hub.

  3. Release the mouse button.

A link is created with both hubs automatically added as references.

Click the new draft link and select Create to open the link creation form.

  1. Leave the business name as defined for the draft.

  2. Enter a technical name.

  3. Select Relationship as the link type.

  4. Click Next.

Hub references

The employee and shop hubs are automatically displayed as hub references because the link was created by connecting the two hubs.

Check the references and click Save.

The shop_employee link is now created and connected to both hubs.

Resolution

At the end of the process, your data model should look like this:

image-20260416-143755.png