In this exercise, you create a new UML project and become familiar with the use case model template. The use case model describes the functional domain of the system and identifies the functions, operations, and tasks that are critical to the system. The use case model, which is created during the requirements gathering and analysis phase, contains use case diagrams that describe how users interact with the system.
Rational® Software Architect provides a use case model template. The use case model template can help you create properly structured UML use case models that are complete with documentation and navigation links. The template is created according to Rational UML model structure guidelines and contains notes that describe tips and best practices.
You now have a new UML modeling project called PiggyBank. This project will contain all the models and data for the PiggyBank online banking system. You can explore the model structure in the Model Explorer view by expanding the model folders. You can double-click the diagrams in the Model Explorer view to view them in the diagram editor.
The use case model template is structured according to the Rational UML model structure guidelines. The use case model template organizes the model around internally cohesive, loosely coupled, functional groupings that can help you quickly create a complete, logical use case model. Before you create your model, you should think about the system in terms of the functional tasks that it must perform and organize the model according to these tasks. This organization can help you define the most important system goals. These functional tasks, often called functional areas, become the basis for the structure of your use case model. For example, in the PiggyBank online banking system, the application must perform common banking operations such as displaying a balance and transferring money. The PiggyBank use case model contains a functional area called Account Operations that contains the actors, relationships, and use cases that describe common banking operations.
The use case model template contains the following packages:
Package | Description |
---|---|
«perspective» Overviews: | This package contains views and navigation links for the primary actors and use cases in the use case model. |
«ModelLibrary» Use-Case Building Blocks | This package contains the basic functional area structure that you can use to organize your model. This package contains the Functional.area building block, and the use.case building block. Your building block package should contain all use cases that are associated with the functional area, as well as all actors and relationships that participate in the functional area . |
Versatile Actors | This package contains all the actors that participate in more than one functional area. |
You can use the existing template structure and the accompanying documentation to guide you as you define your functional areas and organize them into a proper use case model.
Continue to Exercise 1.2: (Optional) Using Rational RequisitePro® to view and associate use cases with model elements.