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3. Register Entities

What is an Entity?

In FeatureByte, an Entity represents real-world objects or concepts. While entities are typically associated with a primary key or foreign key in the data, they can also be represented by categorical columns that define groups of related objects.


Step 1: Identify Entities in Your Data

In the M5 Store Sales Amount dataset, we identified two entities:

Name Description Serving Name
Store A Walmart store location store_id
State A US state (CA, TX, WI) state_id

Step 2: Register Entities

Navigate to the Entity catalog from the 'Explore' section of the menu.

Repeat this for each entity:

  1. Click Register Entities.
  2. Fill in the form: the Entity's Name, its Serving Name and optionally its description.
  3. Confirm by clicking Save Entity.

Register Store Entity


Register State Entity


Step 3: Review Registered Entities

Verify the registration by checking the Entity Catalog under the 'Explore' section.

Entity Catalog


Step 4: Tag Columns Representing Entities

From the menu, navigate to the 'Explore' section and access the Table catalog.

For each table, navigate to the 'Columns' tab and associate relevant columns with the entities they represent.


In SALES,

  • store_id represents Store.

Tag Entities in SALES


In CALENDAR,

  • state_id represents State.

Tag Entities in CALENDAR


In STORE_STATE,

  • store_id represents Store.
  • state_id represents State.

Tag Entities in STORE_STATE


Step 5: Review Entities Tagging and Relationships

  1. Review entity tagging in the Entity Catalog.

    Entity Catalog


  2. Verify relationships in the Relationships Catalog.

    Open the Relationships Catalog to ensure that the relationship between Store and State is correctly established through the STORE_STATE table.

    Relationships


  3. Validate the table diagram in the Table Catalog.

    Navigate to the Table Catalog.

    Click the diagram icon in Table Diagram to review the automatically generated table diagram.

    Table Diagram