CT015-3-2 Design Methods

Activity Diagram Modeling

 Learning objectives

• At the end of this lecture, you should be

able to :
– Describe the kinds of actions in an
activity
– Describe control and object flows
– Create an activity diagram

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 Activity Diagram

• Depicting the flow of control and

sequencing among activities.
• An activity diagram shows the sequence of
activities, decision nodes, loops, and even
concurrent activities.
• To depict one or more steps in the use
case description.

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 Activity Diagram

• Activity diagrams can describe system

workflow, use case, class, or operation
behaviour
– Read like a flowchart
• Can model control and dataflow
– Sequential and synchronous actions

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 Elements in Activity Diagram

A step in the activity, in which the

Action users or software perform some
task.

A connector that shows the flow of

Control Flow
control between actions.

Indicates the first action or actions

Initial Node
in the activity.

An end to the activity. When a

Activity Final
token arrives, the activity
Node
terminates.

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 Elements in Activity Diagram

A flow final node terminates a flow.

Unlike the activity final node,
which ends an entire activity,
Flow Final Node
reaching a flow final node has no
effect on other parallel flows that
are being processed within the
activity at the same point in time.

A conditional branch in a flow. Has

one input and two or more outputs. An
Decision Node
incoming token emerges on just one
of the outputs.

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 Elements in Activity Diagram

Divides a single flow into

concurrent flows. Each incoming
Fork Node
token produces a token on each
outgoing connector.
Combines concurrent flows into a
single flow. When every incoming
Join Node
flow has a token waiting, a token is
produced on the output.
Required to merge flows that were split
with a decision node. Has two or more
Merge Node
inputs and one output. A token on any
input emerges on the output.

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 Example 1: Dematerialize Cargo

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 Elements in Activity Diagram

A call behavior action represents a linked

Call Behaviour
call to a separate activity (and its
Action corresponding activity diagrams)

The individual elements of an activity

diagram can be divided into
Activity individual areas or 'partitions'.
Partition Various criteria can lead to the
creation of these partitions:
organization entities, cost centers,
locations, etc:

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 Call operation action: modelling
class operations
• A call operation action transmits an operation call
request
• To create, drag an operation onto the
diagram to create a call operation
action
– The action takes the name of the operation

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 Partition

• Group activity nodes and edges that have

common characteristics
– Provide a view of the behaviors in an
activity, but do not affect the control flow
or object flow
– Describe who or what is responsible for
the activities that they contain

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 Object flow

• Object flow models the data flow within an activity

• Object flow can only be attached to object nodes or
pins on actions
• Object nodes and object flow provide the
capabilities for explicit data flow modeling
• An object node represents the data participating in
an activity diagram
– It represents an instance of a classifier (such as
a class), as well as the corresponding data and
behaviour
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 Object Flow

• The ‘Opening Door’

activity sends an
‘open’ command to the
‘door’ object.
• The ‘Waiting for
Transmitter’ activity
reads the status of the
‘transmitter’ object.
• The objects are
instances of the ‘Door’
and ‘Transmitter’
classes.
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 Object Flow

• An object node is an abstract class, and is

specialized by the following object nodes:
• Pins
• Activity parameter nodes
• Data stores

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 Object Flow : Pins

• Pins are either input pins or output pins

• Pins model where actions and activities
are sending and receiving data

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 Object Flow: Activity Parameter

• Represent the data parameters coming

into or going out of an activity
– Can send and receive
– May have an associated data type (such
as a class or interface)

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 Object Flow: Data store

• Used to model persistent data, such as

saving information to a database, or
retrieving information from a database

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 Review

• Draw and explain all the elements in

activity diagram.

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 Q&A

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 Hospital Management System

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 Purchasing Department

• Create an activity diagram based on the following narrative. The

purchasing department handles purchase requests from other
departments in the company. People in the company who initiate
the original purchase request are the "customers" of the purchasing
department. A case worker within the purchasing department
receives that request and monitors it until it is ordered and received.
Case workers process the requests for purchasing products under
$1,500, write a purchase order, and then send it to the approved
vendor. Purchase requests over $1,500 must first be sent out for a
bid from the vendor that supplies the product. When the bids return,
the case worker selects one bid. Then, the case worker writes a
purchase order and sends it to the approved vendor.

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