Question on terms?

[Bill Egge]

I am about to get with some other people for them to describe their business process.  In order to keep this simple I want to give them 3 terms that they can structure their explaining around.

I know what these things are, but I am not sure what the terms are, can someone tell me?


Here is a situation that includes these 3 concepts:

The goal is to do a background check.  Internally when we get a newhire we have to create a file and ftp it to another company, that company will do the background check and send a file back to our ftp server.  I will have a routine which will do something with that file (probably just email it, but possibly more)

In the above the 3 things are
1.  A new hire, the receiving of the file by them. (Event?)
2.  The file we send them, the file they send back. (Goal?)
3.  Either ftp server, the destination email address.  (Interface?)

What are the proper UML terms for these things from the perspective of a process?

[Jan ´Bary´ Glas]

Lets start with your last question. UML is not a methodology, it says nothing about perspective of process, but it gives us some elements and concept how to make a diagram "readable in a standard way". For processes you may use an UML activity diagram, BPMN, Ericsson-Penker notation or so.
I am talking about business process - that happens if you have software or not. And such process is described in nonSW words. So your example would be:

The goal is to <<do something that brings money>>.  Internally when we get a newhire we have to create a file and ftpsend it to another company, that company will do the background check and send a file back to our ftp serverus.  I will have a routine which list of steps that will do something with that file (probably just email it, but possibly more)

Then a new hire is an event starting the process, the files are objects being sent and "we" and "them" would be business actors. I may model it like this:

But important is: USE THE WORDS YOUR BUSINESS DOES and BE CONSISTENT.

[Bill Egge]

Hi Bary with 1 r,

Thank you for creating the diagram, I may steal it


Your diagram shows an immediate return from "Them" but in our case, the background check result is something we have to wait on.  It will be sent to our ftp server by the other company, and I think it may even be only sent if the background check turns up any info.  

So would I model this return as a separate event?

Also, we would not do a background check if that employees employer has opted out of the automatic background checking on new hires.  Would I then create a pre-condition on the Create and Send action that says "Client has not opted out"

[Jan ´Bary´ Glas]

How about make two processes of it? E.g. Send to checking and the rest? Or better look at the picture...



There are many ways - all depends on what you are modelling, what do you need to say,...

You may use my diagrams, I wouldn't use them anyway (or I would at least rename "we" and "them"    and add an action on [no] branch)

[Bill Egge]

I forgot about the diamond  

The diamond works.

But you have the return file being part of what looks like an synchronus flow, but thats not the way it happens.  Should it be modeled that way, or should it have its own starting point like an event?

[Jan ´Bary´ Glas]

The diamond is called in UML Decision point (left) or Merge (right, new in UML 2) or Choice (state diagrams).
I return my return file (Checked file object) with something called Object flow in UML it gets via merge into Action1 (my fault the Checked file shouldn't be there). Merge here means "do not synchronize", synchronization is provided by Join element in UML 2.

[Bill Egge]

Thanks for all your help Bary