Combining / merging actor and object elements

[atw]

Hello everyone,

I am creating a business object model (yes, the big one) and a business use-case model.  I am at a stage where I have object elements in the BOM that are equivalent to actor elements in the business use-case model (i.e. a company object in the BOM has an equivalent company actor in the use-case model).

The question that I have is: what are some good ways to merge these two models?

- Should I  merge one of the element into the other (e.g. delete object elements that have equivalent actor elements)?
- Should I keep both elements and indicate in some fashion that they are equivalent?
- Any other methods?

Any suggestion will be appreciated.

Thanks!
Nick

[thomaskilian]

I would keep both in parallel. When I create a BOM I have a very abstract sight of the system. I put it in a separate package somewhere in the top of the browser. When I later come to the use case view I normally create the actors again. I do not have a reason for that - just my stomach. In the business view I describe the actor in a much more abstract way. Later when it comes to use cases I have this 'duplicate' actor with use case related information which I normally would not like to have in the business view. It's also advisable to stereotype actors in the business view as business actors (as in RUP?).

[atw]

Thomas,

Thank you for responding to my question so quickly!

Just to clarify, are you using UML actor elements in both the business view and the business use-case view or are you using UML object elements in the business view and UML (business) actor elements in the business use-case view?

Thanks again!
Nick

[thomaskilian]

I do use simple actors. I found my own style which has a bit of Eriksson-Penker and Sparx. Most of the time the icons from the analysis toolbar suffice to show what I need to show. Just to distinguish between the both views I stereotype the actors in the BOM as <<business actor>>.

There are some threads about business object modelling in this forum. Try searching for "penker" as Eriksson is more likely to be written the wrong way