6.

Activity Diagram
State Diagram
Objects

• Process View
 Activity Diagram
 State Machine Diagram

• Ref.: Chapter 5 (p. 155 & p. 160)

Analysis and Design of IS 2

Analysis and Design of IS 3
Activity Diagram

• Describe dynamic aspects of the system.

• Describe how activities are coordinated to provide a
service which can be at different levels of abstraction.
• It is also suitable for modeling how a collection of use
cases coordinate to represent business workflows
 Identify candidate use cases, through the examination of
business workflows
 Identify pre- and post-conditions (the context) for use cases
 Model workflows between/within use cases
 Model complex workflows in operations on objects
 Model in detail complex activities in a high level activity
Diagram

Analysis and Design of IS 4

• A basic activity
diagram - flowchart
like

Analysis and Design of IS 5

• An activity diagram may have only a single entry state, but may
have multiple or exit states.

Analysis and Design of IS 6

Activity Diagram Notation Summary

Notation Description Notation

Activity Is used to represent a set of
actions

Action A task to be performed

Control Flow Shows the sequence of

execution

Object Flow Show the flow of an object from

one activity (or action) to another
activity (or action).

Analysis and Design of IS 7

Notation Description Notation
Initial Node Portrays the beginning of a set of
actions or activities

Activity Final Stop all control flows and object

Node flows in an activity (or action)

Object Node Represent an object that is

connected to a set of Object
Flows
Decision Represent a test condition to
Node ensure that the control flow or
object flow only goes down one
path

Merge Node Bring back together different

decision paths that were created
usingofaIS
Analysis and Design decision-node. 8
Notation Description Notation
Fork Node Split behavior into a set
of parallel or concurrent
flows of activities (or
actions)

Join Node Bring back together a

set of parallel or
concurrent flows of
activities (or actions).

Swimlane A way to group activities

and performed by the same
Partition actor on an activity
diagram or to group
activities in a single
thread

Analysis and Design of IS 9

• The activity diagram example below describes
the workflow for a word process to create a
document through the following steps:
 Open the word processing package.
 Create a file.
 Save the file under a unique name within its
directory.
 Type the document.
 If graphics are necessary, open the graphics
package, create the graphics, and paste the
graphics into the document.
 If a spreadsheet is necessary, open the
spreadsheet package, create the spreadsheet,
and paste the spreadsheet into the document.
 Save the file.
 Print a hard copy of the document.
 Exit the word processing package.
Analysis and Design of IS 10
• Process Order Activity Diagram Example

Analysis and Design of IS 11

• Student Enrollment Activity Diagram Example

Analysis and Design of IS 12

Activity Diagram - Swinlane

• A swimlane is a way to group activities

performed by the same actor on an activity
diagram or activity diagram or to group activities
in a single thread.
• An example of a swimlane activity diagram for
modeling Staff Expenses Submission:

Analysis and Design of IS 13

• Other Ex.:

Analysis and Design of IS 14

Analysis and Design of IS 15
• Swimlane and Non-Swimlane Activity Diagram

Analysis and Design of IS 16

Nested activities

• At times one needs to show transitions which

is common to a whole range of states. Adding
all these transition would, however, make the
activity diagram difficult to read.

Figure 5.19, “ Showing common transitions via nested activities. ” shows that help and
exit are available in all states of the game, i.e. whenever the game application is
running.

Analysis and Design of IS 17

State Diagram

• The behavior of an entity is not only a direct

consequence of its inputs, but it also
depends on its preceding state.
• State diagram typically are used to describe
state-dependent behavior for an object.
• An object responds differently to the same
event depending on what state it is in.

Analysis and Design of IS 18

• State diagrams are usually applied to objects
but can be applied to any element that has
behavior to other entities such as: actors, use
cases, methods, subsystems systems and
etc. and they are typically used in conjunction
with interaction diagrams (usually sequence
diagrams).

Analysis and Design of IS 19

What is a State?

• Rumbaugh defines that:

 "A state is an abstraction of the attribute values
and links of an object. Sets of values are grouped
together into a state according to properties that
affect the gross behavior of the object.“
• State Notation

Analysis and Design of IS 20

Characteristics of State Notations

• A state occupies an interval of time.

• A state is often associated with an
abstraction of attribute values of an entity
satisfying some condition(s).
• An entity changes its state not only as a
direct consequence of the current input, but it
is also dependent on some past history of its
inputs.

Analysis and Design of IS 21

Basic components

Notation Notation
Initial state

Final state

State

Transition

Fork

Join

Self
transition

Analysis and Design of IS 22

State

• A state is a constraint or a situation in the life

cycle of an object, in which a constraint
holds, the object executes an activity or waits
for an event.
• A state machine diagram is a graph
consisting of:
 States (simple states or composite states)
 State transitions connecting the states

Analysis and Design of IS 23

• Characteristics of State
 State represent the conditions of objects at certain
points in time.
 Objects (or Systems) can be viewed as moving
from state to state
 A point in the lifecycle of a model element that
satisfies some condition, where some particular
action is being performed or where some event is
waited

Analysis and Design of IS 24

• Initial and Final States
 The initial state of a state machine diagram, known as an
initial pseudo-state, is indicated with a solid circle. A
transition from this state will show the first real state
 The final state of a state machine diagram is shown as
concentric circles. An open loop state machine represents
an object that may terminate before the system terminates,
while a closed loop state machine diagram does not have a
final state; if it is the case, then the object lives until the
entire system terminates.

Analysis and Design of IS 25

Events

• An event signature is described as Event-name

(comma-separated-parameter-list). Events appear in
the internal transition compartment of a state or on a
transition between states. An event may be one of
four types:
 Signal event - corresponding to the arrival of an
asynchronous message or signal
 Call event - corresponding to the arrival of a procedural call
to an operation
 Time event - a time event occurs after a specified time has
elapsed
 Change event - a change event occurs whenever a
specified condition is met

Analysis and Design of IS 26

• Characteristics of Events
 Represents incidents that cause objects to
transition from one state to another.
 Internal or External Events trigger some activity
that changes the state of the system and of some
of its parts
 Events pass information, which is elaborated by
Objects operations. Objects realize Events
 Design involves examining events in a state
machine diagram and considering how those
events will be supported by system objects

Analysis and Design of IS 27

Transition

• Transition lines depict the movement from one state to another. Each
transition line is labeled with the event that causes the transition.
 Viewing a system as a set of states and transitions between states is very useful
for describing complex behaviors
 Understanding state transitions is part of system analysis and design
 A Transition is the movement from one state to another state
 Transitions between states occur as follows:
 An element is in a source state
 An event occurs
 An action is performed
 The element enters a target state

• Multiple transitions occur either when different events result in a state

terminating or when there are guard conditions on the transitions
• A transition without an event and action is known as automatic
transitions

Analysis and Design of IS 28

Actions - Activity

• Actions
 Action is an executable atomic computation, which includes
operation calls, the creation or destruction of another object,
or the sending of a signal to an object. An action is
associated with transitions and during which an action is not
interruptible - e.g., entry, exit

• Activity
 Activity is associated with states, which is a non-atomic or
ongoing computation. Activity may run to completion or
continue indefinitely. An Activity will be terminated by an
event that causes a transition from the state in which the
activity is defined

Analysis and Design of IS 29

• Characteristics of Action and Activities
 States can trigger actions
 States can have a second compartment that contains actions or
activities performed while an entity is in a given state
 An action is an atomic execution and therefore completes without
interruption
 Five triggers for actions: On Entry, Do, On Event, On Exit, and Include
 An activity captures complex behavior that may run for a long duration
- An activity may be interrupted by events, in which case it does not
complete occur when an object arrives in a state.

Analysis and Design of IS 30

• Entry and Exit Actions
 Entry and Exit actions specified in the state. It must be
true for every entry / exit occurrence. If not, then you
must use actions on the individual transition arcs
• Entry Action executed on entry into state with the
notation: Entry / action
• Exit Action executed on exit from state with the
notation: Exit / action

Analysis and Design of IS 31

Substates

• A simple state is one which has no substructure.

• A state which has substates (nested states) is
called a composite state.
• Substates may be nested to any level. A nested
state machine may have at most one initial state
and one final state.
• Substates are used to simplify complex flat state
machines by showing that some states are only
possible within a particular context (the enclosing
state).

Analysis and Design of IS 32

• Substate Example - Heater

Analysis and Design of IS 33

Concurrent State

• As mentioned above, states in state machine diagrams can be nested.

Related states can be grouped together into a single composite state.
Nesting states inside others is necessary when an activity involves
concurrent sub-activities.
• The following state machine diagram models an auction with two
concurrent substates: processing the bid and authorizing the payment
limit.
• Example - Auction Process

Analysis and Design of IS 34

• Ex.:

Analysis and Design of IS 35

Analysis and Design of IS 36