Lecture

Activity Diagram
 Introduction
• An activity diagram is essentially a flowchart,
showing flow of control from activity to activity.
• Unlike a traditional flowchart, an activity diagram
shows concurrency as well as branches of
control.
• You use activity diagrams to model the dynamic
aspects of a system. For the most part, this
involves modeling the sequential and concurrent
steps in a computational process.
 Elements
• Activity diagrams commonly contain:
– Actions
– Activity nodes
– Flows
– Object values
 Actions and Activity Nodes
• Actions: Atomic computations are called actions, like, call an
operation on an object, send a signal to an object, or even
create or destroy an object. Actions can't be decomposed
(actions are atomic), meaning you can't execute part of an
action; either it executes completely or not at all.
 Actions and Activity Nodes
• Activity: An activity node is an organizational
unit within an activity. In general, activity
nodes are nested groupings of actions or
other nested activity nodes. Like, evaluate
some expression that sets the value of an
attribute or that returns some value.
 Control Flow
• Control Flow: A flow is represented as a
simple arrow from the predecessor action to
its successor, without an event label. A flow of
control has to start and end someplace
 Guard condition and decision
• Guard Condition:

• Decision:
 Merge Point, Start and End
• Merge Point:

• Start and End:

 Concurrency
• Forking and Synchronization: Number of outgoing concurrent flow out of
a forking; must match with the number of incoming concurrent flow in its
respective synchronization (joining).
Concurrency (Example)
 Swimlane
• Swimlane: Modeling workflows of business
processes, to partition the activity states on an
activity diagram into groups, each group
representing the business organization
responsible for those activities. Each swimlane
has a name unique within its diagram. A
swimlane really has no deep semantics, except
that it may represent some real-world entity,
such as an organizational unit of a company.
Swimlane (Example)
 Object Flow
• Objects may be involved in the control flow associated with an activity.
Usually how the state of object changes is shown with object flow.
 Case Studies
• Case 1
• In an online movie ticket booking system a customer books ticket using an
interface. After the customer places a request for current movies he waits
for the information. While the customer is waiting the server creates a
Session object which then requests a list of currently running movies from
the movie database. The list is then sent to customer. Customer then
selects the desired movie and the Session object retrieves the available
timing of the selected movie. Before displaying the time to the customer
each scheduled time of the movie is checked in the Booking Database for
the availability of the seats. Only the time schedules in which seats are
available are displayed to the customer. The customer then selects the
number of seats he wants to book. The rate of the ticket is taken from the
Movie Database and the due amount is calculated by the Session object.
Then the customer enters his credit card detail for the calculated amount
which is verified by a creditCardAgent. If the card is verified the session
object sends a receipt to the customer, writes in the booking database
and update the movie database at the same time. If the card is not
verified the customer request is denied. The server finally destroys the
session object.
 Case Studies
• Case 2
• In an online airlines ticket booking system, a customer places a request to the
system selecting the departure and arrival destinations and also the date of
departure. The system then gets all the carrier names and their time schedule
from the flight database. Once the carrier names and their time schedules are
received the system displays the options of the carriers and the schedule to the
customer. If the customer likes any one of the options, he selects the option. But,
if the customer doesn’t like any option he can go back and select a new date of
departure or he can close the application. After selecting an option, the system
asks for customer details and credit card information. The system verifies the
credit card. If the credit card is valid, the system writes all the booking information
in the booking database and sends customer information to the carrier
simultaneously. If the verification of the credit card fails, the system sends an error
message to the customer and requests for credit card information again. The
verification process is done again. If the credit card verification fails for three times
the system cancels the booking process and sends a warning message to the credit
card agent at the same time. Once the booking is done the system passes the
message to the interface and the interface generates a bill and sends it to the
customer.
 Case Studies
• Case 3
• In an ATM machine a customer starts a withdrawal transaction by
inserting the card. Then he enters the pin, which is verified by the
bank. If the pin is incorrect the machine requests for the pin again
and the customer enters pin number. The verification repeated for
3 times for an incorrect pin number. If the pin is incorrect even in
4th attempt, the card is seized by the machine and the transaction is
closed. If the pin is correct customer enters the amount he wishes
to withdraw. The bank then checks the account balance of the
customer. If the balance is greater than or equals to the withdrawal
amount then money is dispatched through the machine and the
information is written in the log concurrently. If the money is taken
form the slot within 5 seconds, the account is debited and a
transaction receipt is printed simultaneously. If money is not taken
in 5 seconds, it is taken back by the machine. Then the balance is
shown to the customer. The card and the receipt are then ejected
at the same time, and the transaction is completed.
 Case Studies
• Case 4 (Activity Diagram with Object Flow)
• A regular customer requests for product. The sales
department processes the order by creating a new
order object in empty state. Materials of the order are
pulled out of the inventory at the warehouse and the
order is set as filled. Products are then shipped by the
warehouse. While the Customer receives the order,
sales department prepares the bill. If the customer
pays for the bill within a week sales department closes
the order. If the customer doesn’t pay the bill within
one week the sales department sends warning to the
customer making him defaulter and closes the order in
unpaid state.