Can I model an Event as instance of a class?

[mcoletti]

I am  modeling a part of our business using Eriksson Penker Business Extensions.

In a view of my model, I create a class diagram with the "Business Events Model", where each kind of business event is modeled with a "Class".

Instances of those events are input events in an Activity diagram, associated with a "flow" to processes.

I would like to keep the relationship from the instance (event) to the class (Class stereotyped as <<Business Event>>), but I am not able to do so in EA.

Any hint?

Thanks,

massimo

[thomaskilian]

This is likely not EA but UML. You can't associate a class with an object in the way you do it. On BP level I usually have only objects, not classes. The latter come in at later design phase.

[mcoletti]

Thanks,

my question comes from the usage - in E/P Business Extensions - of a class diagram to model the structure of events. According to this model, each event is represented as a class, stereotyped with <<Business Event>>.

Instances of the "class" events (always according to E/P) are the "ReceiveEventActivity" events represented as input to a process.

In my understanding of E/P, this means that the events in the Process Activity Diagram are instance of the <<Business Event>> class as well as a normal object is an instance of a class.

Reading UML 2.0 specifications doesn't help me to understand if this relationship may exist, but reading E/P it seems so (also if the Business Extensions were developed for UML 1), also if it is not explicitly represented.

Keeping the two classifiers completely unlinked doesn't allow the reader to understand in which processes each event is relevant; this was the reason behind my question.

Cheers,

Massimo

[thomaskilian]

I see. I should read more carefully. Can you tell me whether you make use of the EP Profile from Sparx. What elements do you use for Receive/Send? Until now I simply used EP for a coarse picture used for the management to give an overview.  I never coupled it to anything else in my model.

[mcoletti]

I am not using the E/P UML profile available from Sparx website, because I don't find the full profile described by the authors; instead I am developing mine, trying to amend it - if necessary - with changes in UML 2.

I was able to model the required association:

• in the Process diagram, I have created an event.
  
• In a class diagram, used to represent events, I have created a Class - stereotyped as <<business event>>.
  
• In the Relationship Matrix, I have linked the two elements with an instantiation association.
  

The matrix parameters were:

• Source: Business Vision / type: Class
  
• Target: Business Process / type: Event
  
• Link Type: Instantiation
  
• Direction: Source Target
  

In this way, I am able to document the Class/Business Event, and have a link - in the generated html documentation - to each instance of that event appearing in processes, and vice versa.

If you are interested, when my profile will be complete, I can send it to Sparx (I don't know if this could meet copyright issues, I will investigate on this).

Cheers,

Massimo

[thomaskilian]

Hi Massimo,
that would really be great. You could upload the profile to the EA Usergroup in the meantime.

So far I was using BPM only a bit since UML seemed to be too clumsy to handle it in full. I'll have to re-investigate the lastet improvements.

Have a nice weekend.