Django Model design for a basic inventory application - django

Question

I am new to Django (and databases for that matter) and trying to create a simple inventory application to help learn. I've been through the tutorials and am going through some books, but I am stuck at what i think is simple, just not sure where to look or how to ask.
With an inventory application, you have your equipment which then has a manufacturer, which the equipment has a model number that only that manufacturer has. Lets say Dell Optiplex 3040. I am also using the admin console right now as well. So i would like to be able to relate equipment to a manufacturer and then also relate the equipment to the model number. It almost seems as I am needing to use the many to many field and the through field to accomplish what I am trying to do but I dont think that is the right way to do it (shown in the link below). https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/db/models/#many-to-many-relationships
Below is the code I have so far. Thank you.
from django.db import models
# Create your models here.
class Department(models.Model):
department = models.CharField(max_length=50)
def __str__(self):
return self.department
class Manufacturer(models.Model):
manufacturer = models.CharField(max_length=50)
def __str__(self):
return self.manufacturer
class EquipmentModel(models.Model):
equipmentModel = models.CharField(max_length=50)
def __str__(self):
return self.equipmentModel
class Employees(models.Model):
employee_name_first = models.CharField(max_length=25)
employee_name_last = models.CharField(max_length=25)
employee_username = models.CharField(max_length=20)
phone = models.IntegerField()
assigned_equipment = models.ForeignKey('Device', default='undefined')
department = models.ForeignKey('Department', on_delete=models.CASCADE, default='undefined')
job_title = models.ManyToManyField('Job_Positions', default='undefined')
def __str__(self):
return self.employee_username
class Device(models.Model):
ip = models.GenericIPAddressField(protocol='IPv4',unpack_ipv4=False,null=True, blank=True)#might be good to seperate IP in its own class because a device can have multiple IP's
department = models.ForeignKey('Department', on_delete=models.CASCADE)
manufacturer = models.ForeignKey('Manufacturer', on_delete=models.CASCADE)
serial_number = models.CharField(max_length=50)
date_created = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=False, auto_now_add=True)
date_updated = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True, auto_now_add=False)
comments = models.TextField(blank=True)
def __str__(self):
return self.serial_number
class Job_Positions(models.Model):
position_title = models.CharField(max_length=50)
position_description = models.TextField(blank=True)
def __str__(self):
return position_title
***Edit to add the updated code and the admin.py code in response question I had to answer.
#admin.py
from django.contrib import admin
# Register your models here.
from .models import Device,Department,Manufacturer,Employees, Job_Positions, EquipmentModel
class DeviceModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
list_display = ["ip", "department","model","serial_number","date_updated"]
list_filter = ["department","model","ip"]
search_fields = ["ip"]
class Meta:
model = Device
class EmployeesModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
list_display = ["employee_name_first", "employee_name_last", "employee_username", "phone"]
list_filter = ["department"]
class Meta:
model = Employees
admin.site.register(Device, DeviceModelAdmin)
admin.site.register(Department)
admin.site.register(Manufacturer)
admin.site.register(EquipmentModel)
admin.site.register(Employees, EmployeesModelAdmin)
admin.site.register(Job_Positions)
updated models.py
from django.db import models
# Create your models here.
class Department(models.Model):
department = models.CharField(max_length=50)
def __str__(self):
return self.department
class Manufacturer(models.Model):
manufacturer = models.CharField(max_length=50)
def __str__(self):
return self.manufacturer
class EquipmentModel(models.Model):
model_number = models.CharField(max_length=50)
manufacturer = models.ForeignKey('Manufacturer', on_delete=models.CASCADE)
def __str__(self):
return self.model_number
class Employees(models.Model):
employee_name_first = models.CharField(max_length=25)
employee_name_last = models.CharField(max_length=25)
employee_username = models.CharField(max_length=20)
phone = models.IntegerField()
assigned_equipment = models.ForeignKey('Device', default='undefined')
department = models.ForeignKey('Department', on_delete=models.CASCADE, default='undefined')
job_title = models.ManyToManyField('Job_Positions', default='undefined')
def __str__(self):
return self.employee_username
class Device(models.Model):
ip = models.GenericIPAddressField(protocol='IPv4',unpack_ipv4=False,null=True, blank=True)#might be good to seperate IP in its own class because a device can have multiple IP's
department = models.ForeignKey('Department', on_delete=models.CASCADE)
model = models.ForeignKey('EquipmentModel', on_delete=models.CASCADE,null=True)
serial_number = models.CharField(max_length=50)
date_created = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=False, auto_now_add=True)
date_updated = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True, auto_now_add=False)
comments = models.TextField(blank=True)
def __str__(self):
return self.serial_number
class Job_Positions(models.Model):
position_title = models.CharField(max_length=50)
position_description = models.TextField(blank=True)
def __str__(self):
return position_title

Answer 1

A many-to-many relationship is not what you want here, because any piece of equipment (I assume) can only have one manufacturer.
You do need an intermediate model which stores the model information, and you already have one in your EquipmentModel. I would suggest modifying it as follows:
class EquipmentModel(models.Model):
# This stores information about a particular model of device
manufacturer = models.ForeignKey('Manufacturer', on_delete=models.CASCADE)
model_number = models.CharField(max_length=50)
And then instead of having a foreign key to the manufacturer in Device, replace it with a foreign key to the equipment model:
class Device(models.Model):
# ...
model = models.ForeignKey('EquipmentModel', on_delete=models.CASCADE)