Lecture 2: Business Use Cases and Actors - How to identify them SYS366 Lecture 2: Business Use Cases and Actors - How to identify them

What is a Business Use Case? “A business use case describes how a business actor uses a business to achieve a goal and what the business does for the business actor to achieve that goal.”* *Use Case Modeling, by Bittner & Spence, p. 331.

What is a Business Use Case? “It tells the story of how the business and its actors collaborate to deliver something of value for at least one of the actors.”* *Use Case Modeling, by Bittner & Spence, p. 331.

What is a Business Use Case? “… is independent of the concrete possibilities and requirements for its (IT-related) implementation.”* *Developing Software with UML: Object-Oriented Analysis and Design in Practice, Bernard Oestereich, p. 72.

Business Use Cases How to identify a Business Use Case? Look for processes the company uses to satisfy the requests of the business actors Processes could be an event that the business needs to respond to or it could be an event where the business needs to generate some kind of response back Can include manual as well as automated processes

Business Use Cases Where does a Use case start? “At the start there is always a commercial trigger, a commercial event Customer would like to conclude a contract Customer would like to rent a vehicle Marketing department would like a statistical evaluation of reservations”* *Developing Software with UML, Object-oriented Analysis and Design in Practice,Bernard Oestereich, p. 74.

Business Use Cases Where does a Use case end? “At the end a result has been produced that has “commercial value” A vehicle registration A letter to the customer A business management evaluation”* *Developing Software with UML, Object-oriented Analysis and Design in Practice, Bernard Oestereich, p. 74.

What is a Business Actor How to identify the Actors? Look for who is placing requirements on the system. Anybody who is directly or indirectly involved affected by the system. Directly: someone who will have direct contact with the system Indirectly: someone who does not have direct contact with the system but who is involved in the business that is supported by the system

Business Actors Example of Actors: Users of the system Other departments (Marketing, Sales) Clients or Management Customers System Administrators, Service Personnel, Training Personnel, Support Personnel System Developers, System Maintenance Personnel Buyers of the system

Business Use Cases Narrative: handle vehicle reservations and rentals. A car rental company wants a new Information System to handle vehicle reservations and rentals. The new system will provide all functions directly related to handling customers. These include customer information, reservations, vehicle rental, and invoicing. Internal Accounting, Product Planning, Vehicle Transfer are not part of the system.

Finding Business Use Cases Let’s do a lab that will show you how Business Use cases and Business Actors are used in a Rational Rose Diagram. The diagram will model the functions of one of the subsystems of the car rental company’s information system: vehicle rental (1%)