Feeds bring data into the system - say from a Web Form or an RSS feed. That data is fed into a Table.

Tables and fields are at the heart of structured data. They are the structure, into which the data is placed.

If you are familiar with Microsoft Access, or any relational database product, you can quickly skim this section, as the concepts and names will be familiar.

If you are storing data on a set of things, you need to decide what information you want to know about each one. For example, for the 'plants' case study we needed to know the plant Name and Flower Color, Hardiness Zone, amongst others. Each of these are Fields – one field for the Name, one for the Color, etc.

All these Fields collectively make up a 'Table'.

Once you start entering information, the Table contains Records – made up of the Fields, one Record for each item.