I am looking to design a simple low-code or no-code web/mobile app to hold a large collection/catalog of global suppliers, buyers, products, files and images
That will serve as a user friendly product sourcing platform for internal use by the organization
The problem:
The information is currently held in Excel spreadsheets (vendors data) and the files and photos are stored locally in folders on the PC, see example below
There are over 1000 vendors on record and over 120GB of files and images, nothing is linked/synced and everything is done manually (e.g. insert new row in Excel and create new folder for each new vendor)
This resource of information is impossible to manage efficiently without an app that connects everything together (data and files)
The solution:
What tables and fields should I have in the database structure? I came up with the following to begin with, is this the correct way to go?
Vendors- id, name, country, website, categories, type (supplier, buyer)
Categories- id, name, parent, attributes
Products- id, name, category, attributes, images, vendor
Files- id, name, url, file_type, vendor
Images- id, name, url, image_type, vendor, tags
Attributes_types- id, name, category
Attribute_values- id, type, value
File_types- id, name (catalog, pricelist, document, quotation, pricelist, slideshow)
Image_types- id, name (product, logo, showroom, factory)
Tags- id, name (favorite, high-res, low-res, white-background)
Is this a correct method for the database schema? Or how can it be improved?
For the app, I will need these features:
- files: file manager (pdf, doc, xls, etc)
- images: photo gallery/media library (jpg, png, etc)
- sort and filter (search both vendors and files/images by data fields)
- link images to multiple suppliers/buyers (many to many)
- add both global attributes (size, color, material, price, etc) and category-specific attributes (bed width, chair seat height, etc)
- attach files/images from multiple sources (url, filesystem), upload in bulk (multi select, drag and drop), organize in folders/subfolders
- ease of use, scalability, flexibility, no maintenance, minimum/no fees, low-code/no-code, feature rich, optimized for both web and mobile
Which platforms/apps/services are most suitable for this project? I'm currently considering these options:
- AWS/GCP/Azure (cloud)
- AppSheet/FireBase/DataTables/MDB (database)
Is a low-code platform a good approach or too limiting? I have never built such app or database before so a low-code or no-option would be ideal if it can support most/all of these features I needed in the app
question from:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66056794/database-design-for-product-sourcing 
