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Swimlane Diagrams
• Swimlane diagrams provide a way to represent the steps involved in
a business process or the operations of a proposed software
system.
Requirement Analysis & • They are a variation of flowcharts, subdivided into visual
subcomponents called lanes.

Specification • The lanes can represent different systems or actors that execute the
steps in the process.
• Swimlane diagrams are most commonly used to show business
TOPIC # 8 processes, workflows, or system and user interactions.
• They are similar to UML activity diagrams. Swimlane diagrams are
Chapter 10,11,12 & 13 – Karl Wiegers sometimes called cross-functional diagrams.
Chapter 9 - Reference • Process steps – Rectangle, Transition b/w process steps – Arrows
(* connecting rectangles, Decision – diamonds, Swimlanes –
(*subdivide the process) by horizontal, vertical lines on page.

Swimlane Example State Transition Diagram

State Tables
• They show all the possible transitions between states in the
form of matrix.

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Decision Tables & Decision Trees

• A software system is often governed by complex logic, with
Example- Decision Table
various combinations of conditions leading to different system
behaviors. • Example: An insurance s/w calculates premium based on the
following rules:
– If the insured is male, then premium is $1500 per year
– If the insured is female, then premium is $1000 per year
– If the insured’s car has alarm, premium is reduced by 10%

Decision Trees

local item 15%

Specifying Data
wholesale
customer
Requirements
imported item 10%

local item 12%

retail
customer

imported item 7%
Determine Customer Discount

Data Modeling Data Modeling Concepts: Entity

Data modeling – a technique for organizing and • Entity – a class of persons, places, objects,
documenting a system’s data. Sometimes called events or concepts about which we need to
database modeling. capture and store data.

Entity relationship diagram (ERD) – a data

model utilizing several notations to depict data
in terms of the entities and relationships
described by that data.

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Attributes Identification
Attribute – a descriptive property or Key – an attribute, or a group of attributes,
characteristic of an entity. Synonyms that assumes a unique value for each entity
include element, property, and field. instance. It is sometimes called an identifier.
Concatenated key
Candidate key
Compound attribute – an attribute that
Primary key
consists of other attributes. Synonyms in
Alternate key.
different data modeling languages are
numerous: concatenated attribute,
composite attribute, and data structure.

Relationships Cardinality
Relationship – a natural business association that Cardinality – the minimum and maximum
exists between one or more entities. number of occurrences of one entity that may be
The relationship may represent an event that links related to a single occurrence of the other entity.
the entities or merely a logical affinity that exists Because all relationships are bidirectional,
between the entities. cardinality must be defined in both directions for
every relationship.
Student Curriculum bidirectional
Is being studied by is enrolled in

Student Is being studied by is enrolled in

Curriculum

Degree Data Modeling Concepts: Degree

Degree – the number of entities that participate
Associative entity –
in the relationship. an entity that
A relationship between two entities is called a inherits its primary
key from more than
binary relationship. Associative
one other entity Entity
A relationship between different instances of the (called parents).
same entity is called a recursive relationship.
Each part of that
A relationship between three entities is called a 3- concatenated key
ary or ternary relationship. points to one and
only one instance of
each of the
connecting entities.

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Foreign Keys Resolving Nonspecific Relationships

Foreign key – a primary key of an entity that is
used in another entity to identify instances of a
relationship.
– A foreign key is a primary key of one entity that is
contributed to (duplicated in) another entity to
Many-to-many
identify instances of a relationship. relationships can
– A foreign key always matches the primary key in be resolved with
an associative
the another entity entity.
– A foreign key may or may not be unique (generally
not)
– The entity with the foreign key is called the child.
– The entity with the matching primary key is called
the parent.

Generalization Hierarchy
Generalization
Generalization – a concept wherein the
attributes that are common to several types of
an entity are grouped into their own entity.

Supertype – an entity whose instances store

attributes that are common to one or more
entity subtypes.

Subtype – an entity whose instances may inherit

common attributes from its entity supertype
And then add other attributes that are unique to
the subtype.

END OF TOPIC # 8B

-COMING UP!!!!!!
-Midterm Exam II
-Requirement Analysis & Specification
– contd
-Stakeholder Analysis & Profiling

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