Background

I'm a first year CS student and I work part time for my dad's small business. I don't have any experience in real world application development. I have written scripts in Python, some coursework in C, but nothing like this.

My dad has a small training business and currently all classes are scheduled, recorded and followed up via an external web application. There is an export/"reports" feature but it is very generic and we need specific reports. We don't have access to the actual database to run the queries. I've been asked to set up a custom reporting system.

My idea is to create the generic CSV exports and import (probably with Python) them into a MySQL database hosted in the office every night, from where I can run the specific queries that are needed. I don't have experience in databases but understand the very basics. I've read a little about database creation and normal forms.

We may start having international clients soon, so I want the database to not explode if/when that happens. We also currently have a couple big corporations as clients, with different divisions (e.g. ACME parent company, ACME healthcare division, ACME bodycare division)

The schema I have come up with is the following:

1. From the client perspective:
   • Clients is the main table
   • Clients are linked to the department they work for
     • Departments can be scattered around a country: HR in London, Marketing in Swansea, etc.
     • Departments are linked to the division of a company
   • Divisions are linked to the parent company
2. From the classes perspective:
   • Sessions is the main table
     • A teacher is linked to each session
     • A statusid is given to each session. E.g. 0 - Completed, 1 - Cancelled
     • Sessions are grouped into "packs" of an arbitrary size
   • Each packs is assigned to a clien