Creating activity diagram

Activity diagram is a flowchart-based diagram showing flow of control from activity to activity. It shows concurrency, branch, control flow and object flow. Swimlane, furthermore, is used for partitioning the activity states.

Creating activity diagram

• Click on UML on toolbar and select Activity Diagram from the drop down menu.
  
• Right click on Activity Diagram in Diagram Navigator and select New Activity Diagram from the popup menu.
• Select File > New Diagram > UML Diagrams > Activity Diagram from the main menu.

Create activity diagram

 

Creating swimlane

You can click either Horizontal Swimlane or Vertical Swimlane on the diagram toolbar.

Create swimlane

Next, click on the diagram to create it.

Swimlane is created

Double click at the top of partition to rename it.

Rename partition

Inserting partition to swimlane

To insert partition to swimlane, right click on a partition and select either Insert Partition Before or Insert Partition After from the pop-up menu. The selection depends on the location you want to insert.

Insert partition to swimlane

A partition is inserted.

Partition inserted

Creating initial node

Click Initial Node on the diagram toolbar.

Create initial node

Click inside the partition to create the initial node there.

Initial node created

Creating action

Move the mouse over the initial node, press its resource icon Control Flow -> Action.

Create action

Drag it to your preferred place and then release the mouse to confirm creating. An action is created and is connected to the initial node with a control flow.

Action created

Similarly, you can create a new action from the existing action by pressing its Control Flow -> Action resource icon.

Create a new action from an action

Create as much as actions you need. Finally, when you want to finish the activity diagram, press Control Flow -> Activity Final Node.

Completed activity diagram

Working with scenario

A scenario is a diagram formed by the internal interaction of a sequence of action, modeled by their sub-diagrams. With scenario, you can produce a diagram which presents an overview of an execution path in activity diagram, so as to know how user and system communicate with each other in order to complete the flow.

Producing scenario from activity diagram

1. Right click on the activity diagram's background that contains the flows that you want to produce a scenario, and select Scenarios > Edit Scenarios... from the pop-up menu.
   

   Edit scenario

2. In the Edit Scenarios dialog box, click Add... button at the bottom left corner to add a scenario.
3. Select a path for generating scenario. Click OK button to confirm.
   

   Select a path for generating scenario

   NOTE:

   A path is a continuous flow of actions in the diagram, with an initial node placed at the beginning of the actions. Multiple paths are obtained by determining the existence of decision nodes within the flow.

4. Name the scenario. Add description if necessary.
   

   Name and describe scenario

5. The actions being involved in the flow are listed in the Path table. For actions that have sub-diagram(s), pick up the sub-diagram in Diagram column, or just create a new one. You may, however, leave it unspecified, which cause that action to be ignored when producing scenario.
   

   Select diagram for action

6. Click the upside down arrow of Generate button and select the type of diagram of the scenario.
   

   Generate scenario with specific diagram type

Updating scenario

Whenever the sub-diagram(s) of action(s) are updated, you can update the scenario to make it represents the latest information of interaction. To update scenario, right click on the activity diagram that have scenario produced before, select Scenarios, then the name of scenario from the popup menu.