Activity and Class Diagrams for
Modelling Business Process
Richard Hopkins
rph@nesc.ac.uk
UML for Use Cases
NeSC, Edinburgh, Jan 5/6 2006
Development Process
Capture
Requirements
to elucidate
requirements
– what
entities exist Activity Diag.
and how each
Class Diag.
behaves
Partially articulated
requirements
Use Case Diag.
Requirements
Sequence Diag.
Construct
Model of
Overall system
Class Diag.
…
Activity Diag.
UML for Use Cases, Jan 5/6 2006
Sequence Diag.
Activity/Class diagrams
Structure
Behaviour
2
More Technical Diagrams
Activity Diagram
Flowchart
Deals with the whole behaviour of one actor
Class Diagram
shows the structure of the types of entities involved
in the system
These are more complex diagrams
Usually used for the Software design – internal
operation
Can be used to describe external operation
Might be useful in clarifing requirements
UML for Use Cases, Jan 5/6 2006
Activity/Class diagrams
3
Activity Diagram (flowchart)
Swimlanes – separate Actors – persons or systems
user
librarian
[borrower] Find Book
on shelf
[returner]
Wait in
queue
[returning]
[borrowing]
Record
loan
Record
return
Put book back
On shelf
finalise
decision
[guard]
description
- verb
transition
UML for Use Cases, Jan 5/6 2006
activity
Start / stop
Synchronisation bar –
Start/Collect concurrent activities
“concurrent” = non-sequenced
Any order or parallel
Activity/Class diagrams
4
Class Diagram
User
Student
Item
Staff Member
Copy
Book
Journal
Article
each box represents a class of entities
here “real world” entities
Generalisation (= Inheritance)
Every StaffMember is a User
Every Student is a User
If User can do it, so can Student and StaffMember
Every Book is an item; Every Journal is an item
Doing something to an item means doing that to a book or
to a Journal
To facilitate understanding of / communicate about
The application domain
NOT the structure of system implementing it
UML for Use Cases, Jan 5/6 2006
Activity/Class diagrams
5
Class Associations
User
Item
has out
Student
Staff Member
Copy
Is copy
of
Book
Is part
of
contains
Journal
Article
has out
Ordered print-off
Associations – knows about
there is an association line if there is a relevant realworld association –

“any user can have out a copy (of a book)”

“a Staff Member can have out a Journal

“an article can be part of a Journal”
….
only label one end
UML for Use Cases, Jan 5/6 2006
Activity/Class diagrams
6
Multiplicities
Student
Number of Copy objects that can
be associated with one student
object : At least 0; At most 6
0..1
0..6
has out
Staff
Copy
0..12
0..1
0 or
1
1
1..*
Is copy
of
Book
Exactly 1
At least 1,no upper limit
Constrains the number of entities at one end
that can be associated with one entity of the
other end (in this association type, at any one
time)
Either – single number (usually 0 or 1)
Or range X .. Y.
* for Y means no upper limit
UML for Use Cases, Jan 5/6 2006
Activity/Class diagrams
7
Questions?
UML for Use Cases, Jan 5/6 2006
Activity/Class diagrams
8
Practical –
Business Process Model
Working in groups
For the system of your Use Cases
or some other group’s
E & F seem to me to show relatively little potential for
entity structuring
Construct a Class diagram of the entities involved
Construct an activity diagram for (part of) the behaviour
of one entity class
How easy? How useful
Use pencil & paper or VP-UML
2 hours (ish)
UML for Use Cases, Jan 5/6 2006
Activity/Class diagrams
9