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# Data Model & Schema
- URL: https://www.namastesalesforce.com/training/data-model/
- Published: 2025-04-13T09:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-04-13T09:00:00.000Z
- Description: Objects, relationships and record types — the schema decisions you cannot cheaply undo, made deliberately.
- Author: Swarnil Singhai
- Tags: Data Model Basics, #module, #Import 2026-09-03 19:13

Objects, relationships and record types — the schema decisions you cannot cheaply undo, made deliberately.

## What you'll learn

How to choose between standard and custom objects, pick the right relationship type with three questions, use record types for the right reasons, read any org's real schema in Schema Builder, and build a many-to-many properly with a junction object.

## Prerequisites

Admin Foundations lessons 01–02, or equivalent comfort with objects, fields and records. A free Developer Edition org to build in.

## How the sections chain

Five sections, oldest first, each building on the last: you start by deciding whether an object should exist at all, then how it relates, then how it varies, then how to read what is already there — and finish by building the trickiest shape, the junction, end to end.

## What you'll be able to do

- Run the reuse test before creating any custom object
- Choose lookup vs master-detail with three questions, not habit
- Spot the three warning signs of record-type overuse
- Audit an inherited org's schema in ten minutes
- Model a many-to-many with correct sharing on both sides