Capturing and Linking Use Cases
and Concerns to Rich Pictures:
Catalyst.gsm.uci.edu
Walt Scacchi, Ph.D.
Systems Analysis and Design
for ECommerce and EBusiness
GSM 271/FEMBA 271
Spring 2003
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Use Case Review
A Use Case tells a story of reaching a goal,
or a set of stories about reaching or failing.
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Use Case Review
• A UC story captures:
– a relation (activity designated by a verb/verb
phrase)
– the role/community/actor who performs the
activity
– normal, exceptional and error scenarios
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• Scenarios are narratives that describes a sequence of
steps, actions or other activities
• Scenarios identify objects that the actor manipulates
through the relation
• Objects have attributes which may be manipulated by
3
steps in the relation
A Use Case Example
• UC 4: “Place an order”
• (Normal Scenario):
•“
1. The clerk identifies the customer, each
item and quantity.
•
2. System accepts and queues the order.”
• (Exception Scenarios):
•
“1a. Low credit: Clerk takes prepayment”
•
“2a. Low on stock: Customer accepts
reduced...”
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Use Case Example in detail
• “Place an order” -- the relation as a verb
phrase
• “Clerk”, “Customer” and “System” are the
actors
• “Order” (as in purchase_order) is an object
manipulated by the clerk and system
– Order has attributes: “customer-identifier”,
“item”, “quantity”, “credit-status”, etc.
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Format for Capturing a Use Case
• UC Identifier (a verb phrase identifying the
relation)
• Scenarios
• (Optional--extra credit) Use Case Diagram
– Items specific to the relation extracted from the Rich Picture
– UML has a modeling/diagramming construct called a “Use Case
Diagram”, which is a more primitive subset of a Rich Picture.
– Search for details Use Case Diagram on the Web
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Use Case Examples for a Corporate
Portal: Catalyst.gsm.uci.edu
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Fund,
delegate, &
promote
Communicate &
support faculty
& students
Provide highquality course
content
Dean’s Office
Create/edit &
upload content
GSM staff
Communicate,
discuss, teach, &
research
Faculty
Download
content
Edit/upload content
Do
Email
Enterprise Mandala
Communicate,
discuss, & learn
Do Forum or
Chat/IRC
Access other
Web content
Upload messages
or bio content
Develop& Test
Catalyst
Download
content
MBA students
Manage Catalyst
content
GSM IT Support Staff
Centralize IS
support and
content mgmt.
Help faculty,
students, staff
with h/w, s/w
& network
An enterprise system rich picture for the UCI GSM Catalyst System with hyperlinked
descriptions of the Use Cases and Concerns
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Relations in Catalyst
• Create/edit & upload
content
• Download content
• Do Forum or Chat
• Do Email
• Access other Web
– note: there are two
content
instances of this relation
• Manage Catalyst
in the rich picture
content
• Edit/upload content
• Develop & Test
• Upload messages/bio.
Catalyst
content
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Do Forum or Chat
• Faculty can request students in their courses to download
or upload messages via a Discussion Forum or Chat
• Faculty or Students can download/upload messages for
sharing with other students in their course at any time.
– (Exception) Faculty can remove messages from their Discussion
Forums
• User constraint: Messages that are deleted from a
Discussion Forum cannot be retrieved
• User constraint: Chat message content is not saved by
Catalyst
• System constraint: Discussion Forum message content may
be lost if Catalyst Database is not backed-up.
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Create/edit & upload content
• Faculty (authors) create (insert) new content or edit (update) existing
course content
• Faculty can transmit the content they create to Administrative staff for
edit&upload into Catalyst, else Faculty upload their content into
Catalyst
• Faculty/staff can only upload one type of course content at a time into
Catalyst
– (Exception) Catalyst will allow existing content to be copied from
one course to another without upload.
• Faculty can only edit (update) content they have individually created
– (Exception) Faculty may copy and paste content created by other Faculty
from one part of Catalyst (“Faculty Lounge”) into their course content.
• User constraint: Catalyst cannot verify if content uploaded is correct in
any sense. User is responsible for correctness of content
• System constraint: Catalyst will not allow content edit/upload if the
Catalyst DBMS is not available
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Download content
• Users (Faculty and Students) can search and download
course content:
– for courses Faculty have created; or
– for messages or biography info. entered by Students in
a course; or
– (Exception) from course content designated for sharing
by all Faculty (course syllabi and linked materials)
• User constraint: Catalyst will not allow access to content
except as allowed by GSM Dean’s policy
• System constraint: Catalyst will not allow search or
download of Catalyst content if Catalyst DBMS is
unavailable.
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Edit/upload content
• Faculty can transmit the content they create to
Administrative staff (publishers) for edit&upload into
Catalyst
• Administrative staff can only upload one type of course
content at a time into Catalyst
– (Exception) Catalyst will allow existing content to be
copied from one course to another without upload.
• User constraint: Catalyst cannot verify if content uploaded
is correct in any sense. User is responsible for correctness
of content
• System constraint: Catalyst will not allow content
edit/upload if the Catalyst DBMS is not available
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Upload messages/bio. content
• Students can download, update, then upload personal
biography information for sharing with other users.
• Students (end-users) can upload messages for sharing with
other students in their course at any time.
– (Exception): Students can send&receive email from other students
via Catalyst, without uploading these messages into Catalyst
• User constraint: Catalyst cannot verify if content uploaded
is correct in any sense. User is responsible for correctness
of content
• System constraint: Catalyst will not allow content
edit/upload if the Catalyst DBMS is not available
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Do Email
• Any user can access internal or external email systems via
Catalyst to create, upload, download, update then upload
messages for other users at any time.
• Catalyst does not manage email messages or message
services
– (Exception): Users can create, upload, download, update then
upload email messages via Catalyst, without uploading these
messages into Catalyst.
• User constraint: Users cannot use Catalyst to manage or
keep track of personal/private email messages or message
content
• System constraint: An email server may fail to send or
receive email messages with/without notifying email users
– (Exception) Email servers will notify users if sent mail cannot be
delivered
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Manage Catalyst content
• Developers create the representations, relations, and system
components that provide users access to content managed
by Catalyst.
• Catalyst is used to organize, store, query, retrieve or update
content that is managed by Catalyst
• Catalyst uses a (relational) database management system to
organize, query, retrieve or update content that is stored in
its database
– (Exception) Catalyst stores data that identifies content, and controls
access to content, stored as files in a networked file server, or as
Web-based content accessed via the Web.
• User constraint: Catalyst cannot be used to store arbitrary
files for end-users.
• System constraint: Catalyst cannot control updates to
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external content accessed via the Web.
Develop & Test Catalyst
• Developers create the representations that other users
utilize to create, insert, update or delete their content.
• Developers create, insert, update and delete content stored
in Catalyst representations to test its proper operations
– (Exception) Developers cannot guarantee that all functions
supported by Catalyst have been tested.
– (Exception) Developers cannot guarantee that all functions
supported by Catalyst are re-tested every time any Catalyst
function or operation is modified (updated).
• User constraint: Developers expect that users will notify
them if the users encounter anomalies in Catalyst usage.
• System constraint: Catalyst system components may fail to
operate correctly even though they have been tested.
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Access other Web content
• Faculty can create content that contains Web hyperlinks
• Users can select hyperlinked items
– A selected item is downloaded into the User’s client if
the Web server can retrieve the item.
– (Exception) Users that select hyperlinked content will
be disconnected from Catalyst after a certain elapsed
time, unless they return to Catalyst
• User constraint: Catalyst will not allow access to its
content directly from the Web
• System constraint: Catalyst may unexpectedly terminate a
user session if a user accesses Web items that attempt to
upload information into Catalyst, or launch applications
unknown to Catalyst.
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GSM Administrative Staff: Communicate &
support faculty & students
 Communicate with Faculty and Students
about the status and availability of course
content
 Support and assist Faculty in getting content
into Catalyst for download by Students
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Dean’s Office: Fund, delegate, & promote
 Fund the development, usage and maintenance of
Catalyst at UCI GSM.
 Delegate responsibility to manage Catalyst
operations to UCI GSM GSM IS development
staff.
• Promote the existence and capabilities of Catalyst
to other institutions and users to bring more
recognition, funding, and end-users to UCI GSM.
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Faculty: Provide high-quality course content
• Faculty are encouraged by Dean's Office to
use Catalyst to provide high-quality course
content by creating, uploading, editing and
downloading content for UCI GSM courses.
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Faculty: Communicate, discuss, teach, & research
• Faculty communicate concepts and discuss
course problems and assignments with
Students, as part of how they teach and do
their research.
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GSM IT Systems Support Staff: Centralize IS
support and manage online course content
 Centralize, organize and provide IT
Systems support and manage online content
services for all Catalyst users.
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GSM IT Systems Support Staff: Help faculty,
students, staff with hardware, software & network
systems
• Help support Faculty, MBA Students, GSM
administrative staff and Dean's Office in
their use of Catalyst and its components.
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MBA Students: Communicate, discuss, & learn
• MBA Students are encouraged by Dean's
Office to use Catalyst to download content,
communicate and discuss content with other
MBA Students and Faculty as a way to
learn more about the content. MBA
Students may include others previously
affiliated with the UCI GSM, such as
"alumni".
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