LOB Application Design Advice

i'm working on building application track manufacturing products , orders. i'm building ground (sql server end, .net front end). application run in controlled environment , though experience in past has been in windows application development, decided implement front end using silverlight due deployment aspect. (yes i'm doing myself. employer says can hire software engineer every candidate find either deny or stall indefinitely, that's different story, shouldn't vent here.)

i've been messing .net ria services, entity framework, & mvvm pattern. feel if can these elements play nice, i'll have loosely coupled, maintainable, , extendable system allow me add on functionality , features on monthly basis.  think i'm lost somewhere between 2 problems.

problem #1 database architecture / entity framework.  manufacturing engineers have created instructions on how each product created. these instructions collectively known product definition. divide product definition run cards have instructions particular department (ie. assembly, test, reliability, packaging, etc). run cards further divided processes specific instructions how work done on particular piece of equipment.  summarize, product definition made of 1 or more run card , run card made of 1 or more process.  products similar enough run cards and/or processes may used multiple times, setting many-to-many relationship both between products-runcards , runcards-processes.  starting naive approach, created database products, runcards, , processes tables relationship tables productsruncards , runcardsprocesses (see figure).  ef models these tables , can access them on client via .net ria services.

here problem #2. if want have silverlight client has 3 columns, 1 products, run cards, & processes, each in datagrid few properties exposed. when user clicked on product, example, run cards & processes datagrids filtered display ones relate.  i'm trying tie in mvvm pattern i'm not sure how ought work. since have 1 view, create 1 viewmodel exposes products, runcards, & processes collections? it's not clear how ef deal many-to-many, hierarchical relationships.

i've done quite lot of googling around solutions, examples , direction either advanced me or else simplistic , not able scale size need (ie. demo of single table single view).  know these generic, large picture questions don't answered on these forums. feel i'm wed design have, can no longer see forest through trees.  if has done similar , can correct fundamental design flaws, or point me in direction of resource/book/blog/sample code, appreciate it.  it's not easy putting real world line of business application small samples scrape web , of new me.

bryan

ps, i'll @ devconnections in las vegas next month. if you'll there , willing go on of in person, wicked awesome.

hi,

it sounds though have gone problem #1 in same way would.

i've not used ria service but for problem #2 load products , bind products data grid list of products. runcards datagrid use element element binding bind selecteditem property of products datagrid , runcards property on selecteditem, think xaml binding {binding path=selecteditem.runcards, elementname=productsdatagrid}.

then in same way bind processes datagrid runcards datagrid. assumes have loaded runcards each product , processes each runcard. load these on demand when selecteditem in datagrid changed.

 cheers,

darren

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