How Do I Model My Business Using the UML?
When modeling your business using the UML, it's a good idea to start by considering three interrelated questions:
Who do you do business with?
What do they want your business to do for them, or vice versa?
How does your business meet its needs?
These three simple questions set the context in which your business operates. As an example, let us say you are running a retail business. Who are you doing business with? Who are the people, companies, or systems that come to do business with you? For a retail store, this could include the traditional customers, shipping companies, suppliers, credit-card companies, and so forth. All these people, businesses, and systems play a role in dealing with your business. They are called business actors (they play a role, as real-world actors do; see Figure 2-3).
Figure 2-3. UML business actors for a retail system.
Why do these business actors come to you? For what reasons do they interact with your business? In retail, the business actors may want to do the following:
Purchase products
Return products
Deliver products to customers
Deliver products to your stores
Bill customers
And more
Now that you know what the business actors want, how will your business meet their needs? What services or business functions do you provide to meet those needs? Some typical business functions in retail might be the following:
Retail sales
Billing
Inventory management
Shipping
These are the individual cases of how the business actors will use your business. In the Rational Unified Process [RUP1], these are referred to as business use cases (see Figure 2-4).
Figure 2-4. UML business use cases for a retail system.
