Lecture 4

Activities ...

Systems Analysis and Modelling

(6365, 6677)
Unit Convener: Dr. Saif Dewan

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL
 Lecture Outline
• Administration
• Event Table
• Activities/Actions

• Next Lecture: Context Diagram

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 2
 Administration
• Assignment (Part 1):
– Presentation Due: During your Tutorial in Week 5.
– Report Due: Friday 12 September 11:55 pm in Moodle.

• Any Clarification to Assignment Specification?

• Instructions for Presentation:

– 10 Minutes for Group Presentation.
• 7 minutes for Presentation; and
• 3 minutes for Q&A and Feedback.

– Presentation should include important aspects of Project Purpose,

Stakeholders, Rich Picture and Event Table.

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 3
 Where are We?

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 4
 Event-driven Systems

• Event analysis takes a stimulus-

response perspective:
– The system does nothing until it is
triggered by an event.
– When an event occurs, the system
responds as completely as possible.
– After the response is complete, the
system waits until another event occurs.

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 5
 Event Analysis
• Event analysis creates a system
description by identifying:
– The events to which the system is
expected to respond
– The incoming message (event flow or
data flow) associated with each event
– The desired response
– The actions or behaviors required to
generate the response for each stimulus
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 6
 Event Analysis cont’d.

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 7
 Hints on Event Identification

• Ignore the technology of

implementation – build an essential
event model.
• Model the system’s complete
response – don’t split a single event
into fragments.
• Isolate individual events – don’t
combine events if the system must
wait in between them.
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 8
 A Note on External Events
Remember …
• The events that crosses the system
boundary are the events of interest.

• Things that happen leading up to such

events can be useful in identifying
events, but are not part of the event
table.
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 9
 Event, Condition, Activity,
Response List
EVENT CONDITION ACTIVITY REPONSE

Event State of Work doneResponse by

Description the Systemby the System
the System
------ ------ ------
------ ------ ------ ------
------ ------ ------ ------
------ ------ ------ ------
------

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 10
 Conditions
• Describe a condition internal to the
system;
• Only required when the response to
an event differs depending on the
condition;
• Conditions for an event must be
logically distinct (only one condition will
be true at any time); and
• Conditions must cover all possibilities
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
(all possible states are covered in the
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 11
 List of Events (with Conditions)

Event Condition Response

Withdraw $amount Account Balance >= $amount Allow
withdrawal
Withdraw $amount Account balance < $amount Withdrawal refused

Deposit $amount Deposit acknowledged

Event data
Conditions cover all possibilities
Some (most) rows have no conditions

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 12
 Activity
• Activity is measurable amount of work
performed to convert inputs to outputs.

• It is analogous to Action, Task, Process,

Elementary Business Process …

• At analysis we don’t decide who/what

performs the activity.

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 13
 Identifying Activities
• What the system does upon receiving the
event (input) to produce the response
(output)?

• We have identified events and responses,

and can now document actions.

• What needs to be done to get from the

event to the response?
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 14
 Essential Requirements
• Essential Activity
– All the tasks the system would need to have if it
were implemented using perfect technology.

• Essential Memory
– All the data that the system would have to
remember to perform the essential activities.

• Minimal Essential Model

– Everything you need, nothing you don’t.

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 15
 Minimal Essential Model
• Keeping it minimal
• Requirements Creep
– Attractiveness of ‘cool’ functions
– YAGNI (you ain’t gonna need it)
– Beware ‘future-proofing’
• Early Design
– Doesn’t belong in the analysis phase
• Early Implementation decisions
– Even worse

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 16
 An Example of Expanded Event
List
Event Activity Response
Employee Starts Job Create employment Confirm creation

Time for fortnightly pay run Run fortnightly pay Money

deposited
Employee promoted Payslips
Update provideddetails Confirm update
employment

Time for end of year Perform end of year process Report

Processing Income statements

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 17
 Types of Activities

• Fundamental
– “…performs part of the system’s stated
purpose”
• Custodial
– “… maintains memory needed by a
fundamental activity”
• Hybrid
– Does both
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 18
 Inputs and Outputs

• Activity Input < Event + Associated

Data
• Activity Output > Response

• Activities may also store data

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 19
 Ad Hoc Example of Inputs

• Manufacturing employees swipes their

ID cards into online data collection
terminals that record labor costs and
calculate production efficiency

• The department head enters overtime

hours on a separate screen

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 20
 Ad Hoc Example of Outputs
• The Website reports online volume
statistics every four hours, and hourly
during peak periods
• The inventory system produces a
daily report showing the part number,
description, quantity on hand,
quantity allocated, quantity available,
and unit cost of all sorted by part
number
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 21
 Ad Hoc Example of Activities

• The student records system calculates

the GPA at the end of each semester

• As the final step in year-end

processing, the payroll system
updates employee salaries, bonuses,
and benefits and produce tax data

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 22
 Event/Activity Rules
• One event check
– Each activity contains actions that are
carried out for one event
– An activity doesn’t do two different things
for two different events
• Idleness check
– When the activity is complete, it becomes
idle until another event triggers it again

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 23
 Event/Activity Rules (continued)

• Data associated with the event is

required by the activity.
– No unused data

• Data associated with the response

must
– be associated with event that produces
the response or
– be retrieved from stored data.
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 24
 Naming Actions

• Use language of the domain

• Similar to naming events

– Clear (unambiguous)
– Specific (not vague)
– Correct level of abstraction for modelled domain
– Most often: <VERB> <NOUN>

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 25
 Examples: Good & Bad Activity
Names

• Purchase Item • Do Stuff

• Create Account • Manage Account
• Retrieve User • Access First Name
Details • Access Family
Name …
Can someone tell what the activity is from the
name?
If Systems
notAnalysis
– itandisModelling
a BAD name.
School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 26
 The Data

• Data required by activity must come

from
– Data associated with the event or
– Data stored by the system (memory)

• Data Dictionary includes and specifies

event and stored data

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 27
 Example Data Dictionary
Employment_Details ::= Employee_Details +
Job_Details + Start_Date
Employee_Details ::= Name + Address +
Phone_Details + Bank_Details + TFN
Job_Details ::= Job_ID + Job_Title + Location
Bank_Details ::= Bank + Branch +
Account_Name + Account_Number
Name ::= First_Name + [Middle_Name] +
Family_Name
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 28
 Organising Events
• For a non-trivial system there may be a
large number of events.

• Partition the system

– Keep ‘related’ events together
– What ‘related’ means may differ depending on
the system, the SDLC, and the modelling
methodology.

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 29
 Related Events
• System
– Some systems have natural sub-systems.

• SDLC (System Development Lifecycle)

– Agile methods break up the analysis task,
events for current task are related.

• Modelling Methodology
– Traditional: by function
– Object Oriented: by object

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 30
 Example of Related Events

• System
Employe
e

Payroll

Locatio
n

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 31
 Example of Related Events
(continued)

• Agile

• Suppose you are working on the

following business features and group
events around these:
– Account Creation
– Customer Detail Maintenance

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 32
 Example of Related Events
(continued)

• Functions
– Report-related functions

• Objects
– Order

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 33
 Mapping Use Cases and Actors
from an Event Table

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 34
 An Example of Mapping a Use
Case and Actor from an
External Event

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 35
 An Example of Mapping a Use
Case and Actor from an Internal
Event

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 36
 An Event Table of a Car Rental
Website

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 37
 An Event table for an Order Processing
Event Source Trigger Activity Response
System
Destination
Customer Customer New order is Find Customer Back-ordered Inventory
places an received and Item records. item record is Control
order Produce a back- created Department
ordered item
record if an item
is not in stock.
Update records.
New customer Customer New Customer Add new Record is  
is added Information customer record added
Picking slips Order, Item, Temporal, Send picking   Warehouse
are printed and Customer daily slips
records
Shipping Order, Temporal, Send shipping   Shipping
statements Customer daily statements department
are printed records
Customer Shipping Temporal, Send customer   Customer
order is statements, daily order
shipped Order goods
Customer Customer and Temporal, Send customer   Customer
billing order records monthly billing
statements statements
are printed
Accounts Customer and Temporal, Send accounts   Accounting
Receivable order records monthly receivable report
report is
printed
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 38
 An Event Table for an Online Shopfront

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 39
 An Integrated Use Case Model

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 40
 Where this Information Ends
Up?
• Traditional/Structured

Events Flow into System

Event Data Data on Flows or in
Conditions Stores
Responses Logic in Process Specs
Flow out of System

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 41
 Where this Information Ends Up?
(continued)

• Object Oriented

Events Actor participates in Use

Case
Event Data
Conditions Data on Signals or in
Objects
Responses
Preconditions in Use Cases
Actor participates in Use
Systems Analysis and Modelling
Case
School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 42
 Stored Data

• A data store is a holding place for

information within the system.

• At analysis nothing is specified about

how the data is stored.

• What is stored is specified (in data

dictionary).
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL 43
 Things

Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting 44

Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL
 Entity Relationship Diagram
ERD
Describing the stored data (logical model)
Entities

Entity Name Things,

Nouns,
Attribute Name

Attribute Name

Attribute Name
Data Stores

Build up this view of the data as analysis

progresses
45
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL
 Relationships

Person Car

• More on this is later lectures

46
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL
 Tools

• Basic Tools
– Paper, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, MS Visio
….
– No complex reports or automatic
checking.
– Use this sort of tool in this unit.

47
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL
 CASE Tools

• Computer Aided Software Engineering

– Too many to list ….
• Complex reports
• Automatic checking
• Code Generation
• …
– These sorts of tools makes analysis less
time consuming.

48
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL
 Use Case Description: An
Example

49
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL
 Use Case Description: Another
Example

50
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL
 Next Lecture

• Context Diagram & Data Flow

Diagrams

51
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL
 Questions?

52
Systems Analysis and Modelling School of Information Systems and Accounting
Semester 2 2014 @ Faculty of BGL