INFS2200/7903 PROJECT ASSIGNMENT

Semester Two 2019

Marks: 100 marks (15%)

Due Date: 11:59PM 20-October-2019

What to Submit: SQL script file in addition to a short report

Where to Submit: Electronic submission via Blackboard

The goal of this project is to gain practical experience in applying several database 

management concepts and techniques using the Oracle DBMS.

Your main task is to first populate your database with appropriate data, then design, 

implement, and test the appropriate queries to perform the tasks explained in the next 

sections.

You must work on this project individually. Academic integrity policies apply. Please 

refer to 3.60.04 Student Integrity and Misconduct of the University Policy for more 

information.

Roadmap: Section 1 describes the database schema for your project and it also 

provides instructions on downloading the script file needed to create and populate your 

database. Section 2 describes the tasks to be completed for this project. Finally, 

Section 3 provides you with all the necessary submission guidelines.

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SECTION 1. THE SALES DATABASE

The Database: The SALES database (Figure 1) captures the sales information in a 

company that provides IT services. The database includes four tables: CLIENT, 

PURCHASE, EMP, and DEPT. CLIENT stores information about all the company’s 

clients. PURCHASE keeps track of the service purchases made by the clients. EMP 

stores information about the employees who work directly with the clients and serve 

their purchase requests. Employees work in different departments and the information 

about these departments is stored in the DEPT table. Figure 1 presents the database 

schema.

Figure 1 Database schema

The Script File: Please go to Blackboard and download the supplementary script file 

for this project “prjScript.sql”.

EMP

EmpNo

EName

Position

DeptNo

PURCHASE

PurchaseNo

ReceiptNo

ServiceType

PaymentType

GST

Amount

ServedBy

ClientNo

CLIENT

ClientNo

CName

Phone

DEPT

DeptNo

DName

The Database Constraints: The following table lists all the constraints applied to the 

SALES database.

No Constraint Name Table.Column Description

1 PK_EMPNO EMP.EmpNo EmpNo is the primary key of 

EMP

2 PK_DEPTNO DEPT.DeptNo DeptNo is the primary key of

DEPT

3 PK_PURCHASENO PURCHASE.PurchaseNo PurchaseNo is the primary 

key of PURCHASE

4 PK_CLIENTNO CLIENT.ClientNo ClientNo is the primary key 

of CLIENT

5 UN_DNAME DEPT.DName DName values are unique

6 CK_AMOUNT PURCHASE.Amount Amount (in dollars) must not 

be empty (not null)

7 CK_ENAME EMP.EName EName must not be empty 

(not null)

8 CK_DNAME DEPT.DName DName must not be empty 

(not null)

9 CK_CNAME CLIENT.CName CName must not be empty 

(not null)

10 CK_RECEIPTNO PURCHASE.ReceiptNo ReceiptNo must not be 

empty (not null)

11 CK_SERVICETYPE PURCHASE.ServiceType Service type must be one 

of the following: 'Training', 

'Data Recovery', 

'Consultation', 'Software 

Installation', or 'Software 

Repair'

12 CK_PAYMENTTYPE PURCHASE.

PaymentType

Payment type must be one of 

the following: 'Debit', 'Cash', 

or 'Credit'

13 CK_GST PURCHASE.GST GST must be either 'Yes' or 

'No'

14 FK_DEPTNO EMP.DeptNo and 

DEPT.DeptNo

EMP.DeptNo refers to

DEPT.DeptNo

15 FK_EMPNO PURCHASE.ServedBy 

and EMP.EmpNo

PURCHASE.ServedBy refers 

to EMP.EmpNo

16 FK_CLIENTNO PURCHASE.ClientNo 

and CLIENT.ClientNo

PURCHASE.ClientNo refers 

to CLIENT.ClientNo

Table 1. Database constraints

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SECTION 2. ASSIGNMENT TASKS

Create and Populate Database: You need to execute the script file “prjScript.sql” to 

create and populate your database before working on the following tasks. Wait till you 

see the message “Commit complete.” It should only take several seconds. The script 

will also drop related tables.

Task 1 – Constraints

1. After running the script file, you will notice that only some of the constraints 

given in Table 1 were created. Write the necessary SQL statements to find out 

which constraints have been created on the tables EMP, DEPT, PURCHASE, 

and CLIENT.

2. Write the necessary SQL statements to create all the missing constraints.

Task 2 – Triggers

1. Write a SQL statement to find the company’s top client. A top client is the one 

who has purchased the most (i.e., the one with the highest total purchase 

amount (in dollars) among all the company’s clients). Your statement should 

display: client number, client name, and the total purchase amount by that client.

2. Write a SQL statement to create an Oracle trigger called TOP_DISCOUNT that 

applies a 15% discount to any future purchases made by the top client found in 

Task 2.1.

Hint: Your trigger should use the value obtained from Task 2.1. In particular, it 

should apply 15% reduction to the purchase amount whenever a new purchase 

made by that top client is inserted into the PURCHASE table.

3. The ‘SALES - Sunshine’ department has unfortunately run into a technical issue 

and is temporarily unable to process any ‘Credit’ or ‘Debit’ transactions. As a 

result, it only accepts ‘Cash’ transactions. Besides, the department is offering 

a 30% discount on ‘Data Recovery’ at the moment. Write a SQL statement to 

create an Oracle trigger SUNSHINE_DEPT that will set the PaymentType to 

always be ‘Cash’ for any purchases where the client is served by an employee 

of this department, and if the ServiceType is ‘Data Recovery’, give the customer 

a 30% discount. Note that this discount is exclusive to the ‘SALES - Sunshine’

department.

Task 3 – Views

1. Write a SQL statement to create a (virtual) view called V_DEPT_AMOUNT that 

lists the DeptNo and DName of all the company departments together with the

maximum, minimum, average, and total purchase amount contributed by each 

of those departments.

2. Write a SQL statement to create a materialized view MV_DEPT_AMOUNT that 

lists the same information as in Task 3.1.

3. Execute the following two SQL statements and report their query execution time. 

Did the materialized view speed up query processing? (Hint: Look at both the 

elapsed time and the cost in the execution plan)? Explain your answer.

Q1: SELECT * FROM V_DEPT_AMOUNT; 

Q2: SELECT * FROM MV_DEPT_AMOUNT;

4. Write SQL statements to create a virtual view called V_DEPT_EMP_AMOUNT

and a materialized view called MV_DEPT_EMP_AMOUNT respectively. These 

views should report the contribution of each employee in each department. In 

particular, for each employee, the view should list: EmpNo, the total number of 

purchases, the average amount of purchases, the largest amount of purchase, 

and the total amount of purchases served by that employee. The view should 

list the departments in increasing order of DeptNo, and within each department 

the employees should be listed in decreasing order of the total amount of 

purchases.

5. Execute the following two SQL statements and report their query execution time. 

Did the materialized view speed up query processing? (Hint: Look at both the 

elapsed time and the cost in the execution plan)? Explain your answer.

Q3: SELECT * FROM V_DEPT_EMP_AMOUNT; 

Q4: SELECT * FROM MV_DEPT_EMP_AMOUNT;

Task 4 – Indexes

1. Each receipt is issued from a receipt book whose number is encoded in the first 

three digits of the ReceiptNo field in the PURCHASE table. For example, the 

receipt numbered 454333 was issued from receipt book number 454. Write a 

SQL statement to count the number of purchases for which there have been at 

least 10 other purchases issued from the same receipt book.

Hint: For each purchase p in the PURCHASE table, you will need to go over 

all the other purchases and find the ones with a ReceiptNo that starts with the 

same 3 digits as in p’s ReceiptNo.

2. In order to speed up the query in Task 4.1, a function-based index is to be 

created on the ReceiptNo field. Write a SQL statement to create an index called 

BOOK_INDEX that best fits the task and justify your choice. Report execution 

time of the query statement you wrote in Task 4.1 before and after creating this 

index. Did the index speed up the query (Hint: Look at both the elapsed time 

and the cost in the execution plan)? Explain your answer.

3. The manager of department 50 wants to see the total amount of sales for his 

department for all purchases of services that do not contain the word ‘Software’

(e.g., not ‘Software Repair’, ‘Software Installation’ or any other ServiceType 

containing the word ‘Software’). Write a SQL query to return this amount. 

Note: To make your query general enough, assume that Constraint #11 is not 

in place and there could be many services offered by the department that are

beyond the ones listed in Constraint #11. Besides, you should avoid using LIKE 

and instead use string manipulation functions such as INSTR, SUBSTR, etc.

4. In order to speed up the query in Task 4.3, a function-based index is to be 

created on the ServiceType field. Write a SQL statement to create an index 

called SERVICE_INDEX that best fits the task and justify your choice. Report 

the execution time of the query statement you wrote in Task 4.3 before and 

after creating this index. Did the index speed up the query (Hint: Look at both 

the elapsed time and the cost in the execution plan)? Explain your answer.

5. Write a SQL statement to count the number of purchases for which there are at 

least 1,000 other purchases with the same ServiceType, PaymentType, and 

GST values.

6. In order to speed up the query in Task 4.5, indexes should be created on the 

ServiceType, PaymentType, and GST columns. In your opinion, what is the 

most suitable index type to create on those columns, and why? (Note: Do not 

include any SQL to create these indexes in your script file; just provide your 

answer in the report.)

Task 5 – Execution Plan

1. Write a SQL statement to list the information for purchase number 1234. Report 

and explain the plan chosen by the Oracle optimizer for executing your query.

2. Drop the primary key constraint from the PURCHASE relation and re-execute 

the query you wrote in Task 5.1. Report and explain the plan chosen by the 

Oracle optimizer for executing your query. In your opinion, what are the main 

differences between this plan and the one obtained in Task 5.1?

Marking Scheme:

Tasks Marks

1.1 4

1.2 6

2.1 6

2.2 6

2.3 10

3.1 4

3.2 4

3.3 4

3.4 8

3.5 4

4.1 6

4.2 8

4.3 4

4.4 6

4.5 4

4.6 4

5.1 3

5.2 4

Presentation &

Readability

5

Total 100

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SECTION 3. Deliverables

The project is due 11:59PM, 20 October 2019. Late submissions will not be accepted.

You are required to turn in two files (use studentID to name your files):

1. studentID.pdf: (rename studentID) – Submit on Blackboard via the Turnitin link 

“Submission – Report Only”

A report answering all the questions in Section 2 including all the necessary 

SQL statements and screenshots of their outputs.

2. studentID.sql: (rename studentID) – Submit on Blackboard via the standard 

upload link “Submission – SQL Script Only”

A plaintext script file that includes all your SQL statements.

Your report file should include the following content:

• Answers to all the questions in Section 2.

• If you are asked to write SQL statements, you need to include those statements 

in your report.

• When you execute a SQL statement, if Oracle produces any output (e.g. query 

results, query execution time, query plan, etc), you need to include a screenshot 

of the output as well. For example, in Task 2.1, you need to include a SQL 

statement to find the client who purchased the most and you also need to show

a screenshot of the response of SQL*Plus when you execute that statement. 

Your entire answer for Task 2.1 should look similar as below (the actual result 

might be different).

SELECT … [your statement comes here] • Note: Please be sensible when including query output. Any output close to the 

size of one page can be shown by just including the first 10 lines and the last 

10 lines. Reports including pages of a query output will lose presentation marks. 

You may find some helpful instructions for formatting query output in Practical 

2 or the following Oracle documentation:

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/A57673_01/DOC/server/doc/SP33/ch4.htm

Your script file is in plain text format. You must make sure that your script file can be 

executed on the ITEE lab machines by the “@” command. The same SQL statements 

in your script file should also be copied and pasted into your report file (as explained 

above). Even though the script file does not introduce any new information compared 

to the report, it is intended to help the lecturer/tutors to quickly check the correctness 

of your SQL statements before checking the details in your report file.