How to Draw a UML Association Class
An association class, which is essentially a class attached to an association, is used to model an association as a UML class. It has its own name, attributes operations, just like any other ordinary class. However, it is described by additional attributes which does not belong to the objects involved in the association. For example, an Enrollment class is added to hold the attribute year between Student class and Course class, but it does not belong to either Student class or Course class.
Export UML Class Diagram to Microsoft Excel
Visual Paradigm for UML supports exporting and importing Microsoft Excel file. You can export diagrams to Excel file, edit model elements’ name and their properties in tabular format and furthermore, import the modification back to VP-UML.
Publish Your Business Process Using the Project Publisher
Logizian enables you to publish your project to the web. You can share your latest business process and system designs with your clients, team members and colleagues from other departments through the Project Publisher. All information about the project gets published, including the documentation, property details, internal references and external references of each diagram and model element.
How to Add Custom Fields to Use Case Details?
Properties or tags are used to keep information about use case and can be viewed in Use Case Details. In there, you will see a number of fields such as level, complexity and author that are provided by default. In VP-UML, if you need to store additional information in use case details, you can create custom fields to do that.
Compare Databases with Visual Diff
Visual Diff is a feature providing visual comparison between diagrams. We can make use of Visual Diff to compare the structure of different databases. Assume we have 2 databases, Database1 and Database2. To compare different databases:
Comparison of Query Performance when Working with ORM
Using Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) approach is very popular in developing modern database applications. ORM allows you to handle relational data in a pure object-oriented approach, which is more natural to developers and also the modern programming language they are using (i.e. Java, .NET).
Using GUID Column in ERD
GUID (Global Unique Identifier) is a special type of identifier in Microsoft SQL Server, which commonly use for generate unique value for key columns. You can specify column as GUID through the Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD). The steps for specify GUID column is quite simple:
- Specify MS SQL Server as default database server of the project
- Specify the datatype of primary key column as uniqueidentifier
- Change the ID Generator of the primary key column as GUID
The following flash movie demonstrate how to specify the primary key column as GUID.
Tips for Working with Large Projects
When working with a large, enterprise scale model that involves many diagrams and model element, we may find experience slowness in application, uneasy to model effectively in large diagram and difficult to locate model element. In this article, we will introduce some tips to help improve application performance, reduce time in modeling and diagramming, and to find elements easier.
Transition and Navigation with Model Transitor
A cycle in software development or process improvement is often formed by many distinct phases. For example, one may hold a meeting with end user to collect the requirements. Next, s/he thinks of the room for improvement and then documents the new idea. Furthermore, s/he discusses with the user again and finally puts the idea into practice by providing a solution.
Throughout a cycle, visual modeling helps to express an idea and formalize changes. Different types of diagrams can be applied in accord with various situations. For example, business process diagram can be used to model the current process of an organization, and the improved one. Use case diagram can be used to model the features of a system at high level. Requirement diagram can be used to model user’s specific requirement. When a cycle evolves, the models will get evolved too. Take a look at the image below. The as-is process diagram is evolved into a to-be process diagram that illustrates the process to be applied in future, and the tasks in to-be process diagram are evolved into a use case in a use case diagram for modeling system level user goal. We can imagine when the model evolves in further, the use case can be transited into a set of requirement.
