Creating Entity Relationship Charts

Building Effective Entity Relationship Charts (Or: How to Make Your Boss Think You're a Genius)

Entity relationship charts are the foundation of visual analysis in Analyst's Notebook. These charts allow you to represent people, organizations, events, locations, and other entities as icons and the relationships between them as links—essentially turning your investigation into something that looks like it belongs on a conspiracy theorist's wall, but with better graphics.

Key Skills Covered (That Will Make You Look Like a TV Detective)

• Creating different types of entities - From "Definitely Suspicious Person" to "Probably Innocent Bystander"
• Adding properties and attributes - Because knowing someone's favorite ice cream flavor might be crucial to the case (but probably isn't)
• Creating links between entities - Drawing lines that say "these two people definitely know each other" based on one phone call three years ago
• Defining relationship types - Going beyond "knows" to the more specific "owes money to" or "pretends not to recognize at parties"
• Organizing and arranging your chart - The art of making your tangled web of connections look intentional and insightful
• Using the palette - Finding that one specific icon type that's hiding in a submenu of a submenu
• Customizing entity appearances - Making your chart colorful enough to be interesting but not so colorful it induces seizures

Best Practices (That Everyone Agrees With But Few Actually Follow)

When creating entity relationship charts, consistency is key. Use standard entity types and link types to ensure your charts are easily understood by others—or at least as easily understood as a complex network of criminal relationships can be.

• Use appropriate entity types - A person is a person, not a building. This seems obvious until you're 14 hours into chart creation.
• Label links clearly - "Associated with" is the analytical equivalent of shrugging your shoulders. Be specific!
• Include relevant attributes - But remember, not everything needs to be on the chart. No one needs to see a suspect's entire Netflix viewing history.
• Arrange entities logically - Your chart should not resemble a Jackson Pollock painting unless the case involves abstract expressionists.
• Use consistent styling - Pick a color scheme and stick with it. This isn't the time to express your artistic side.

Common Entity Chart Disasters (And How to Recover)

• The "Everything Is Connected to Everything" Syndrome - When your chart has so many crossing lines it resembles a ball of yarn after a cat attack
• The "Mystery Icon" Problem - When you use a custom icon that made sense at 2 AM but is completely baffling in the morning
• The "What Does This Link Mean Again?" Dilemma - When you forgot to label a critical connection and now have to pretend you remember what it represents
• The "My Chart Is Too Big for the Projector" Crisis - When you have to zoom out so far that all your careful labeling becomes microscopic