Chapter 13: Specifying Workflows with Activity Diagrams

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Overview

In This Chapter

• Defining activities

• Documenting business processes

• Ordering operations

• Controlling object flow

Sometimes, when you are modeling a system or developing software, you need a good old-fashioned dataflow diagram, workflow diagram, or behavior flow diagram. UML has a sort of updated version of the dataflow diagram—called an activity diagram—to help you out in just such a situation. Class diagrams show you who (which class or classes) is related (associations and generalizations) with whom (other classes)—and what each can do (each class’s operations). Sometimes even all that isn’t enough. In this chapter, we show you how to use activity diagrams when you want to emphasize the order of behavior and not necessarily who does the behavior. We give you some tips for modeling complex operations, intricate use-case interactions, and business workflows.

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