Muhammad Azam

BE IM-090

DATA FLOW DIAGRAMS:

“A process model used to depict the flow of data through a system and the work or
processing performed by the system.”

“Data flow diagram (DFD) is a picture of the movement of data between external
entities and the processes and data stores within a system.”

DFD Symbols (Gane & Sarson):

External Entity:
Muhammad Azam

BE IM-090

An outside person, unit, system, or organization that interacts with a system is

called External Entity.

• External agents define the “boundary” or scope of a system being

modeled.

• As scope changes, external agents can become processes, and vice

versa.

• Almost always one of the following:

 Office, department, division.

 An external organization or agency.

 Another business or another information system.

 One of system’s end-users or managers

Data Store:

“Stored data intended for later use. Is used in a DFD to represent data that the
system stores.”

• Frequently implemented as a file or database.

• A data store is “data at rest” compared to a data flow that is “data in

motion.”

• Almost always one of the following:

• Persons (or groups of persons)

• Places

• Objects

• Events (about which data is captured)

• Concepts (about which data is important)

• Data stores depicted on a DFD store all instances of data entities

(depicted on an ERD)
Muhammad Azam

BE IM-090

• Named with plural noun

Process

“Work performed by a system in response to incoming data flows or conditions. “

• All information systems include processes - usually many of them

• Processes respond to business events and conditions and transform

data into useful information

• Modeling processes helps us to understand the interactions with the

system's environment, other systems, and other processes.

Named with a strong action verb followed by object clause describing what the work
is performed on/for.

The procedure for producing a data flow diagram

• Identify and list external entities providing inputs/receiving outputs from system;
• Identify and list inputs from/outputs to external entities;
• Draw a context DFD

Defines the scope and boundary for the system and project

1. Think of the system as a container (black box)

2. Ignore the inner workings of the container
3. Ask end-users for the events the system must respond to
4. For each event, ask end-users what responses must be produced by the system
5. Identify any external data stores
6. Draw the context diagram
i. Use only one process
ii. Only show those data flows that represent the main objective or most common
inputs/outputs
• identify the business functions included within the system boundary;
• identify the data connections between business functions;
• confirm through personal contact sent data is received and vice-versa;
• trace and record what happens to each of the data flows entering the system (data movement,
data storage, data transformation/processing)
• Draw an overview DFD
- Shows the major subsystems and how they interact with one another
- Exploding processes should add detail while retaining the essence of the details from the more
general diagram
- Consolidate all data stores into a composite data store
• Draw middle-level DFDs
- Explode the composite processes
• Draw primitive-level DFDs
- Detail the primitive processes
- Must show all appropriate primitive data stores and data flows
• verify all data flows have a source and destination;
Muhammad Azam

BE IM-090

• verify data coming out of a data store goes in;

• review with "informed";
• explode and repeat above steps as needed.

Balancing DFDs
• Balancing: child diagrams must maintain a balance in data content with their parent processes
• Can be achieved by either:
• exactly the same data flows of the parent process enter and leave the child diagram, or
• the same net contents from the parent process serve as the initial inputs and final outputs for the
child diagram or
• the data in the parent diagram is split in the child diagram

Rules for Drawing DFDs

• A process must have at least one input and one output data flow
• A process begins to perform its tasks as soon as it receives the necessary input data flows
• A primitive process performs a single well-defined function
• Never label a process with an IF-THEN statement
• Never show time dependency directly on a DFD
• Be sure that data stores, data flows, data processes have descriptive titles. Processes should
use imperative verbs to project action.
• All processes receive and generate at least one data flow.
• Begin/end data flows with a bubble.

Rules for Data Flows

• A data store must always be connected to a process

• Data flows must be named
• Data flows are named using nouns
" Customer ID, Student information
• Data that travel together should be one data flow
• Data should be sent only to the processes that need the data

Context data flow diagram

“A process model used to document the scope for a system. Also called the environmental model.”

o Think of the system as a "black box."

o Ask users what business transactions the system must respond to. These are inputs, and
the sources are external agents.
o Ask users what responses must be produced by the system. These are outputs, and the
destinations are external agents.
o Identify any external data stores, if any.

Example: Order system that a company uses to enter orders and apply payments against a customer’s
balance
Muhammad Azam

BE IM-090

Level-0 DFD:

Shows the system’s major processes, data flows, and data stores at a high level of abstraction

When the Context Diagram is expanded into DFD level-0, all the connections that flow into and out of
process 0 needs to be retained.
Muhammad Azam

BE IM-090

Decomposition

 An iterative process of breaking a system description down into finer and finer detail
 Uses a series of increasingly detailed DFDs to describe an IS