UML Diagrams

UML Diagrams

UML stands for Unified Modelling Language and as the name suggests UML diagrams are used to model system. Business Analysts use UML diagrams for diagrammatic representation of system that needs an update or system that has to be developed based on the requirements shared. The two commonly used UML diagrams by a Business Analyst are:

• Use Case Diagram
• Activity Diagram

Use Case Diagram depicts use cases in a system. Use diagram represents the interactions between actors and use-cases. Use case diagram represents main actors, secondary actors, actions performed by actors and relationships between actors and use-cases. Main actors are on the left side of the system and secondary actors are on the right side of the system. System in a use-case diagram is a sequence of actions performed by the actors. Include and extend are the relationships between actions in the system. Generalization is used to represent inheritance. There are two types of generalization (i) Actor Generalization and (ii) Use Case Generalization. Below is an example of a use case diagram:

Activity Diagram represents the flow of activities in the system. Activity diagram has State and action states and the direction arrow between actions shows the flow of actions in the system. In an activity diagram control flow can parallelly go through multiple actions (fork and join). This means that multiple actions can happen simultaneously on the system. Activity diagrams include decision boxes just like flow charts and these decision boxes decide the flow of activities based on the guard condition. In an activity diagram the flow can actually choose one of the multiple actions in the flow (branch and merge). Below is an example of activity: