Activity/Workflow Diagrams Chapter 7 Appendix B

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Process Modeling: Activity/Workflow Diagrams Activity Diagrams  Show the conditional logic for the sequence of system activities needed to accomplish a business process.  Clearly show parallel and alternative behaviors.  Can be used to show the logic of a use case. Chapter 7 Appendix B 2

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Use Activity Diagrams to: Depict the flow of control from activity to activity. Help in use case analysis to understand what actions need to take place. Help in identifying extensions in a use case. Model work flow and business processes. Model the sequential and concurrent steps in a computation process. 3 Chapter 7 Appendix B

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter 7 Appendix B 4 FIGURE 7-36 Activity diagram for a customer order process

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Process Modeling: Activity Diagrams (Cont.) Elements of Activity Diagrams:  Activity: a behavior that an object carries out while in a particular state  Transition: a movement from one activity or state to another  Branch: a diamond symbol containing a condition whose results provide transitions to different paths of activities Chapter 7 Appendix B 5

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Process Modeling: Activity Diagrams (Cont.)  Synchronization bar: horizontal or vertical bars denoting parallel or concurrent paths of activities Fork: the beginning of parallel activities Join: the end of parallel activities  Swimlanes: columns representing different organizational units of the system Chapter 7 Appendix B 6

7 Activity/Workflow Diagrams A activity diagram shows a high-level view of a business process, indicating steps, inputs, and outputs These do not typically attempt to show any decisions The swimlane variant of the workflow diagram shows participants (people or systems) responsible for carrying our various steps Each participant has its own swimlane

8 Activity/Workflow Diagrams Useful for analyzing existing business processes Can show impact on existing processes of requested changes Can identify opportunities for process improvement Can model process changes or new processes

9 Activity/Workflow Diagram Example (with swim lanes) Process Name: Complete an Online Customer Order Input: Customer profile information, including billing and shipping information startsign in submit order confirm available check inventory confirm payment adjust inventory assemble order pack order ship order Output: Shipping bill and tracking information stop Customer Order Approval Inventory Order Fulfillment Shipping swim lanes

10 Team Activity 1.Consider the Seminar Registration System case study (described below) we’ve been working on. Work with your team to create a workflow diagram (with swim lanes) for the process of registering for a seminar. 2.Refer to the earlier Context DFD and Level 0 process decomposition diagram for this system to refresh your memory about it. Seminar registration is now handled by mail or by phone, based on seminar brochures sent out in the mail. The customer wishes to implement an online (web-based) enrollment system. A potential seminar enrollee should be able to go to the new web site, select a specific seminar and then pay for and enroll in it if space is available. Payment would be made by online credit card transaction. The payment information and transaction approval is currently handled by the corporate financial system. The system should send an reminder to each paid participant a week before the seminar is scheduled for delivery. The seminar manager requested a new daily report showing the current status of enrollment for all seminars being offered.

Proposed System Seminar Attendee registration_req_w_cc cancellation_req catalog_search_req confirmation_of_seat confirmation_of_cc_pmt confirmation_of_cancellation registration_decline seminar_reminder Sys Seminar Mgr report seminar_reminder Corporate Financial System payment_info credit action Seminar Data Store Attendee Data Store search_results Case Study Context DFD attendee_information seminar_information report_req

12 Seminar Manager Seminar Registration System First-Cut Level 0 DFD Fulfill Report Request Seminar Attendee Corporate Financial System Cancel Registration 2 Perform Catalog Search 1 Reserve Seminar Seat 3 Initiate Reminder 8 Perform Credit Card Transaction 5 4 System Attendee Data Store Seminar Data Store Scan Seminar Attendees 6 Obtain Address 7