English: CADM Data Model Diagram Notation.

As illustrated in the figure, boxes represent entities for which architecture data are collected (representing tables when used for a relational database); they are depicted by open boxes with square corners (independent entities) or rounded corners (dependent entities). The entity name is outside and on top of the open box. The lines of text inside the box denote the attributes of that entity (representing columns in the entity table when used for a relational database). The horizontal line in each box separates the primary key attributes (used to find unique instances of the entity) from the non-key descriptive attributes.

The symbol with a circle and line underneath indicates subtyping, for which all the entities connected below are non-overlapping subsets of the entity connected at the top of the symbol. Relationships are represented by dotted (non-identifying) and solid (identifying) relationships in which the child entity (the one nearest the solid dot) has zero, one, or many instances associated to each instance of the parent entity (the other entity connected by the relationship line).