Activity Diagram

Ashish Kumar
Dept. of CSE
Manipal University Jaipur

1
What is an Activity Diagram?
Activity diagrams represent the dynamic (behavioral)
view of a system.
Activity diagrams are typically used for business
(transaction) process modeling and modeling the logic
captured by a single use-case or usage scenario.
Activity diagram is used to represent the flow
across use cases or to represent flow within a
particular use case.
A special kind of Statechart diagram, but showing
the flow from activity to activity (not from state to
state).
UML activity diagrams are the object oriented
equivalent of flow chart and data flow diagrams in
function-oriented design approach.
Activity diagram contains activities, transitions
2
What is an Activity Diagram?
The main reason to use activity diagrams is to model
the workflow behind the system being designed.
Diagrams are read from top to bottom and have
branches and forks to describe conditions and parallel
activities.
Activity diagrams do not give detail about how objects
behave or how objects collaborate.
They can show activities that are conditional or
parallel.
Activity Diagrams are useful for describing
complicated methods
Activity Diagrams are useful for describing use cases,
since, after all, a use case is an interaction, which is a
form of activity.
Activity Diagrams are like Flow Charts, but Flow3
When to Use Activity Diagrams
Do use them for
Analysing Use Cases.
Understanding workflow across many Use
Cases.
Dealing with multi-threaded applications.

Don’t use them

To see how objects collaborate.
To see how an object behaves over its lifetime.

4
Basic Components of Activity Diagram
Initial / Start node
 The filled circle is the starting point of the diagram.
Final node
 The filled circle with a boarder is the ending point. An activity diagram
can have zero or more activity final state.
Activity
 An activity is an ongoing, though interruptible, execution of a step in a
workflow (such as an operation or transaction).
 The rounded rectangle represents activities that occur. An activity is not
necessarily a program, it may be a manual work also.
 Text in the activity box should represent an activity (verb phrase in
present tense).
Flow / Edge
 The arrows in the diagram. No label is necessary.

5
Basic Components of Activity Diagram
Fork
A black bar ( horizontal/vertical ) with one flow going into
it and several leaving it. This denotes the beginning of
parallel activities.
Join
A black bar with several flows entering it and one leaving it.
This denotes the end of parallel activities.
Merge
A diamond with several flows entering and one leaving. The
implication is that all incoming flow to reach this point until
processing continues.

6
Basic Components of Activity Diagram
Decision
A diamond with one flow
entering and several leaving.
The flow leaving includes
conditions as yes/ no state
Flow final
The circle with X though it.
This indicates that Process
stop at this point
Swim lane
A partition in activity
diagram by means of solid
line, called swim lane. This
swim lane may be
horizontal or vertical. 8
Join
A join may have two or more incoming transitions
and one outgoing transition.
Above the join, the activities associated with
each of these paths continues in parallel.
At the join, the concurrent flows synchronize.
 Each waits until all incoming flows have

reached the join, at which point one flow of

control continues on below the join.

9
Fork
A fork may have one incoming transitions and
two or more outgoing transitions.
 Each transition represents an independent
flow of control.
 Conceptually, the activities of each of outgoing
transitions are concurrent.
 Either truly concurrent (multiple nodes)

 Or sequential yet interleaved (one node)

10
Swimlanes
A swimlane specifies a locus of activities.
To partition the activity states on an activity
diagram into groups.
 Each group representing the business organization
responsible for those activities.
 Each group is called a swimlane.
Each swimlane is divided from its neighbor by a
vertical solid line.
Each swimlane has a name unique within its
diagram.
Each swimlane may represent some real-world
entity.
Each swimlane may be implemented by one or
more classes. 11
Example
Start State

Activity
Fork

Decision

Merge Join

End
State 12
 Withdraw money from a
Example bank account through an
ATM

13
Advantages of Activity Diagrams
An activity diagram can depict a model in several
ways.
It can also depicts “Basic course of action” as
well as “detailed courses”.
Activity diagram can also be drawn that cross
several use cases, or that address just a small
portion of use case.
Activity diagrams are normally employed in
business process modeling. This is carried out
during the initial stages of requirement analysis
and specification.
Activity diagrams can be very useful to
understand the complex processing activities
14
involving many components.
Disadvantages of Activity Diagrams
A disadvantage of activity diagrams is that they
do not explicitly present which objects execute
which activities, and the way that the messaging
works between them.
 Labeling of each activity with the responsible object
can be done.
 It is useful to draw an activity diagram early in the
modeling of a process, to help understand the
overall process.
Then interaction diagrams can be used to help
you allocate activities to classes.

15
Object Flow
Objects connected using a dependency to the
activity or transition that creates, destroys, or
modifies them.
A special sort of step (state) that represents the
availability of a particular kind of object, perhaps
in a particular state.
No action or subactivity is invoked and control
passes immediately to the next step (state).
Places constraints on input and output
parameters of steps before and after it.
Dashed lines used with object flow have the same
semantics as any other flow or edge.
Class
[State]
16
Object Flow
Objects connected using a dependency to the
activity or transition that creates, destroys, or
modifies them

17
Object Flow In this diagram,
Object flow should
always be in dashed
line, not solid line.

A shorthand notation: use input pins and output pins

(parameters).

Both are valid

ways for object
flow.
18
Interruptible Activity Region
An interruptible activity region surrounds a group
of actions that can be interrupted.

• The Process Order action will execute until completion,

then pass control to the Close Order action, unless a
Cancel Request interrupt is received which will pass
control to the Cancel Order action. 19
Creating an activity diagram
Modelling a workflow in an activity
diagram
Identify a workflow objective.
Decide the pre and post-conditions of the
workflow.
Define all activities and states.
Define any objects that are created or
modified.
Decide on responsibility for performing the
activities.
Connect all elements on the diagram with
transitions.
Place decisions on the diagram.
Evaluate your diagram for concurrent20
Thank You

21