Domain Description
We describe requirements in terms of use case diagrams. The Domain Description phase, as a result, is a functional description of the system composed of a hierarchical series of use case diagrams. Scenarios of the detailed use case diagrams are then explained using sequence diagrams. The following figure shows a Domain Description diagram depicting our analysis for a bookstore case study. Stereotypes used here come from the UML standard. The convention adopted for relationships between the external actors and the system is to direct arrows from the communication’s initiator to the participant.
The Domain Description diagram
Throughout this website, we will only examine one scenario. That is the one that takes place every time that the bookstore needs to purchase some books. This may happen, for example, before the beginning of every semester, so as to provision the store with the requested books and therefore anticipate the students’ needs; or when some faculty has been known to change the required literature, or switch a book from “recommended” into “required”. The scenario is triggered from the Predict Students Needs functionality (see figure) that uses the Search Store’s Archive functionality in order to establish whether there are a sufficient number of items of that book in the store, or not. If not, and the book is needed, a new purchase is to be made and therefore the Provide Books functionality is invoked. This in turn includes, in a regular scenario:
- Definition of the purchase-money (Define Purchase-Money) by the use of an expert system which holds the history of previous purchases, especially in what concerns courses, teachers, number of attendees, books purchased and books sold, suppliers, time elapsed for negotiation and delivery, and so forth.
- Negotiation of the purchase-money (Negotiate Purchase-Money).
- Execution of the order (Carry Out Order).
- Updating of the purchase history archive (Update Purchase History) in order to increase the knowledge of the purchase expert system.
- Receiving delivery information about the purchase (Receive Delivery) in order to close the case related to it.
Next phase: Agents Identification
Previous phase: (none)
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The bookstore case study
Espen Andersen (Norwegian School of Management). Juul Møller Bokhandel A/S, 1997. http://www.espen.com/papers/jme.pdf