USE OF THE DIAGRAMS OF ACTIVITIES FOR THE MODELING OF BUSINESS Usually when we t

ake care to design an information system we're adapting a workflow and behaviors
to a computer system. Able to properly represent and understand these flows wil
l be of great help in designing our system. Inside we have the UML activity diag
ram, this diagram will serve to define the business processes that must be consi
dered our information system. Activity diagrams are part of business modeling. I
n undertaking the activity diagram one can see clearly all activities and logica
l flow, including the processes running in parallel (and not only the sequential
flow), flow of activities and not data, this is one of the main differences bet
ween activity diagram and other flow charts, and this is how we should think abo
ut when we design an activity diagram. This type of diagram is not only used in
software engineering, but in other areas where it has to define work processes,
because with them we can represent the logical sequence of a business process, a
nd broken down into different activities, this is one of the great virtues of th
is type of diagram. Activity diagrams appeared in the UML 1.3 notation, and is o
ne of those used for modeling the dynamic aspects of the system. And these are b
ased on event diagrams Jim Odell and other modeling techniques such as SDL and P
etri Nets. Each activity diagram is composed of a series of activities that repr
esent a state within the flow. This state has to generate some information. It i
s represented by the following figure: Stereotypes IDE
Activity
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business
Activity
An activity can be broken down further breaking down as their activities in anot
her group of them. IDE Description In the Rational Rose, you can add an activity
diagram into an activity to further detail the steps in this activity
In other ides is described within the same activity
Obviously everything that represents an activity flow can be interrupted.
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The activity diagram allows us to identify logical behavior of the flow of activ
ities, with this flow we get a clear picture of the behavior of the business to
logical conditions. We will use the diamond symbol.
Activities communicate with each other using transitions, to represent a transit
ion use an arrow. The sense of flow that we represent is given by the direction
of the arrow. Within the flow of business we are modeling concurrent streams can
be found. In the activity diagram have a synchronization bar to specify the div
ision and union of parallel workflows.
. Synchronization with the bars represent parallel flows, but UML incorporates a
very interesting element to represent parallel flows when they are executed by
different roles. This element is called SWINLINES. A swinline is a responsibilit
y within the flow of the business (high-level responsibility), each swinline mus
t have a unique name within the diagram and an activity can only belong to one S
winlines.
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In Swinlines we represent not only does the business process but also who does i
t. The ability to represent parallel processes responsibilities and diagrams mak
e a value-added activities flow diagrams, as these can only represent sequential
processes.
The activity diagram we will use in the analysis phase, but so we can use in the
development phase at this stage we will use as a tool to represent the behavior
of objects, for it is recommended that these appear to represent its initial va
lue and the results after the activity. But it all flows can be represented usin
g the activity diagram. Nontrivial systems exist which can not reflect their beh
avior in an activity diagram. As we have seen with the activity diagram can have
a clearer vision of what will be the business process
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we need to develop thanks to its great richness of expression, thus clearing any
concurrent or external circuits to our system. These diagrams are also used to
model the flow of a use case.
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