Functional requirements

The Functional Requirements are what the database needs to be able to do.

These can be:

• What entities and attributes are needed (what tables and fields)

• What queries are needed to search/sort the data

In the youth club example, functional requirements could include:

• Needs a table to store details about leaders, including whether they have a first aid qualification

• Needs a tables for members and activities

• Needs a query to show members, sorted alphabetically by town   For functional requirements, always write your answer like:

The database needs a table about …

Or

The database needs a query to ...

This will help you to structure your answer, and makes it less likely you’ll confuse end-user and functional requirements.