[How to] Design the mapping between flow and Class

[jeromars]

Hi everyone,

I looking for a way to design the mapping between attributes of a flow and attributes of a class.

For example it could be the call to a webservice who poplulates  rows in a database or the call of an ETL who does the same thing.

I would like to evict to put this information in usecase because is it a technical response to solve a usecase and not a usecase.

My dream will be to can link the attributs of classes (with an association link for exemple), but I think it is impossible.

For now I have 3 ideas :
- Add tagged values to the attributes of a class ( the  tagged values can be : name of the service, name of the attribute .... )
- Divert the sens of  a diagram and component for create an association between object
- Link an Excel sheet with the mapping inside.

Have you already had the same problem/need ?
How do you solve it ?

Thanks for your response and sorry for my English
Jerome, a French guy.

[Geert Bellekens]

Jerome,

I don't really get between what and what you want a mapping.
What is this "Flow" you are talking about?

Geert

[qwerty]

I also don't understand the goal but you can link attributes: connect the classes and from the context menu of the connector near each class select Link to Element Feature / Attribute.

q,

[jeromars]

When I write it it seems me very clear but now not.
So I try to explain you better.

In my project , we have a lot of data who come from anothers databases ( 7 databases). This data are display to the users.

The organisation of the project is the following: One person is in charge of the specifications (The Business Analyst) and anothers are in charge of the technical response.

The BA specifie that we need to have this data(and how to use it) but it is to the technical team to specifie form where we take the data (Database, ldap...). and how (WS, ETL )


So I call flow (or data exchange flow) the exchange of data between the databases. The flow can be implement by using a WS, a ETL job .....

I found in EA the Data Flow Diagram that I use to describe the exchange between the repositories. But it is not enought detailled  because you don't show the classes and  the attributes.

So I'm looking for a way to describe that (for example the attibute 'name' content in the object 'Student' provide by the WebService 'getStudent' will fill the field 'StudentName' of the table 'CurrentStudent' of the database of the system.

I hope I make myself clearer.

@ qwerty : thanks tor the tips, i didn't know this feature. It can solve my problem. I wait if someone have another idea or solution.

Thanks for you help ,
jerome, A French Guy

[Geert Bellekens]

Jerome,

In your case I would specify the mapping between the attributes of your source, and the attributes of your target.
I wouldn't use DFD's though, they're kind of an old fashioned way of describing things, and they are not standard UML;
To describe the mapping you could

- use the "link to element feature"
- use tagged values (type RefGUID)
- use an external file such as Excel to document the mapping.

It all depends on what you want to do with the mapping information.

Geert