CS5601:

Enterprise Modelling
Session 4:
Business Use Case Modelling
Session Learning Outcomes
 The learning outcomes of the session are to
understand the:
 Definition and purposes of business use cases
 Fundamentals of business use case modelling
 Practical modelling of business use cases

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Business Use Case Modelling
 Business use case modelling is a technique aimed
at documenting and representing business
requirements:
 From a service-oriented perspective
 Actors’ expectations of the business
 In a predominantly textual manner
 Structured English
 In a structured way
 Properties defining service and delivery
 In a form that can be mapped to system requirements
 System use cases

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Use Cases Defined*
 Definitions of use case:
 A sequence of transactions in a system whose task is to
yield a result of measurable value to an individual actor of
the system (Jacobson, 1992)
 A description of a set of sequence of actions, including
variants, that a system performs that yields an observable
result of value to a particular actor (OMG, UML 1.1)
*Use cases will be explained in more detail in the next session.

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Business Use Cases
 A business use case (BUC) is the description of a service, and
its underlying business process, offered by the organisation
and requested by an external party (actor). Thus, the properties
of a BUC must:
 Explicitly name the service
 BUC name
 Describe the underlying business process
 Pre-conditions, Triggering Event, Process Flow, Alternate Flows,
Post-conditions
 Can be depicted graphically as well (business process diagrams)
 Define the BUC actor
 External party expecting an observable result from the service
 Someone or something that lies beyond the boundary of the
organisation under study (N.B.: could be an organisational unit)
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BUC Modelling
 The following represents an indicative list of steps to carry out
BUC modelling:
 Brainstorming session
 Identify candidate set of business actors, use cases and packages
 Structure the identified concepts into diagrams
 Business use case
 Package diagrams (for grouping; to use only when dealing with a
significant number of use cases)
 Describe the concepts
 Business use cases
 Model the process flows
 Business process diagrams
 Continue until the model stabilises
 Reasonable level of agreement amongst the stakeholders

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Business Use Case Template

Property Definition

Business Use Case Defines the name of the use case.

Name
Actor Recipient of the service. Must lie outside the business
boundary.
Trigger Initiating event of the business process.
Pre-conditions Conditions that must be satisfied for the use case to
take place.
Basic Flow Description of the flow of activities that ordinarily take
place for the execution of the process defined in the
use case.
Alternate Flows Description of alternate courses of execution of the
process.
Post-conditions Conditions that must hold true after the termination of
the process. 7
Use Case Diagrams
Business Boundary

Relationship
Insurance Ltd.

Business Use Cases

Applicant Apply for policy

Submit claim Customer

Actors

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Benefits and Limitations

 Benefits
 Technique can be easily learned by business people
 Facilitates communication between stakeholders and modellers
 Both textual and graphical representations
 Same technique can be applied for systems requirements
 Limitations
 Confusion surrounding the meaning and application of use cases
 Business use cases are not well-documented in the literature

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Worked Example
 The worked example that follows is:
 Based on a hypothetical Bank who wishes to
model its front-office operations
 Not intended to be exhaustive, but provides
sufficient detail to understand how to apply
business use case modelling

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BUC Packages

<<Business Use Case Package>>

<<Business Use Case Package>> Manage Customer Profile
Administer Account

<<Business Use Case Package>>

Manage Money
Apply for account

Close account <<Business Use Case Package>>

Request Account Information and Documents

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BUC Packages
BUC Package: Administer Account BUC Package: Manage Money
Packaging This package comprises all
Packaging This package comprises all
rationale services that concern the
rationale services managing financial
account as a whole.
transactions.
Actor Customer Actor Customer
Services l Apply for account Services l Deposit money
provided l Close account
provided l Withdraw money
l Pay bills
BUC Package: Manage Customer Profile
l etc.
Packaging This package comprises all
rationale services managing individual BUC Package: Request Account Information and
properties of the account or Documents
individual aspects of it.
Packaging This package comprises all
Actor Customer rationale services that allow the customer to
receive information or documents
Services l Change contact details related to the account.
provided l Change security details
l Request overdraft limit increase Actor Customer
l Request replacement card
l Dispute account transaction
Services l Request statement
provided l Order Stationary
l etc.
BUC Diagrams
FinBank: Manage customer profile

Finbank: Administer Account

Change contact details

Apply for account Change security details

Customer
Request overdraft limit increase
Customer
Close account

Request replacement card

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Dispute account transaction
Business Use Case
BUC: Apply for account
Primary Actor Customer
Supporting Actors Clerk
Pre-conditions Applicant must be 18 years of age or older and reside in the European Union.
Trigger Customer request
Basic Flow Following the customer’s request to open a bank account, the bank clerk collects
the customer’s details and those of the requested account.
If the applicant is a company then certain conditions can be negotiated.
The customer is given information related to when and how he/she will receive a
response of approval or rejection from the bank.
The clerk sends the application to the accounts department.
The clerk submits application form with valid details to the credit-checking
department for validation/credit scoring.
The credit-checking department proceeds with the validation of the application and
informs the accounts department of the outcome.
If validation is ok the account is created otherwise the request is rejected.
The customer is informed of the outcome and provided with all necessary
information.
Alternate Flows None
Post-conditions Creation of new account. Customer informed. (Main success scenario) or Customer
informed of rejected application
Apply for Account: Process

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BUC vs. System Use-Case

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Readings
 The readings for this sessions are:
 de Cesare, S., Lycett, M., & Paul, R. (2003).
Actor Perception in Business Use Case Modeling.
Communications of the AIS, 12, 223-241.

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