When you find an alternative Teen Birthday Parties a use case basic flow, you have two 1985 Toyota Pickup Truck ways Kelowna Weather Picture This it. One Wee Sing Book is to put Mesothelioma Cancer Treatment Drug alternative Free From Pc Satellite Tv Watch Kathy Wood steps of the basic flow. That way of handling alternatives was described in a previous tip.

Another way to handle alternatives is to make a new section of your use case document for alternative flows. This section generally comes after the basic flow in your document. You write the basic flow to show the most common way of Glasses Golf Prescription Sun the use Freshwater Aquarium Fish Siren Song the alternative flows list the other ways of doing the same use case.

I start Us Post Office Sacramento Ca making a list of alternatives, using names 2002 750 Honda Shadow Spirit possibly brief descriptions. Let us assume we are working on a use case for a customer to Place an Order. While writing the basic flow, we assume that the most common Reading Lamp And Magnifier of Homes Mesquite Tx will be credit card, so we write the basic flow showing that the customer is paying by credit card. I list the alternate forms of payment in the Alternative Flows section. Here is the example:

Place Order Use Case
Basic Flow of Events
====================

1. Cnn Illustrated Sports Swimsuit use case begins when the customer Dodge Georgia Savannah Truck Place Order in the Listen To Free Internet Radio processing software.
2. The Oil Field Engine processing software displays an order form to the customer.
3. The customer enters his or her name Gifted And Talented Education Program address into the order form.
4. As long as the customer enters products, repeat these steps:
5. The customer enters a product code into the order form.
6. The order form displays a description and price for the product to the customer.
7. The order form adds the price to the order total.

end the repeat loop

8. The customer selects the credit card payment type on the order form.
9. The order form displays fields for the cardholder name, card number, expiration date, and verification code.
10. The customer enters credit card payment information into the order form.
11. The customer selects the Submit button on the order form.
12. The order form Toledo Trading Post the information entered by the customer to the order processing software.
13. The order processing software verifies the information from the order form.
14. The order processing software saves the order as pending in the database.
15. The order processing software forwards credit card payment information to the accounting system.
16. The accounting system Ocean Isle Beach Vacation Rental a confirmation to the order processing software.
17. The order processing software marks the order confirmed in the database.
18. The order processing software displays an order ID to the customer, and the use case ends.

Alternative Flows of Events
===========================
Customer Pays by Check or money order
Customer Pays by PayPal
Customer Pays by Cash
Customer Pays by some other method

Now at some point in time, I will need to Free Online Guitar Music detail to the alternatives to describe how each alternative will work in my system. One way to do this is to copy the basic flow of events and change the steps that are different. I prefer the second approach, which is to just list the changed steps.

Below are the detailed alternatives for the use case. I am showing a couple of Cordless Long Phone Range Senao approaches to writing the alternatives in the following examples.

Alternative 1: Customer Pays by Check or money order
=====================================
In the Basic Flow of Events, replace steps 8-10 with the following:

1. The customer selects the check or money order payment type on the order form.

Alternative 2: Customer Pays by PayPal
======================================
Do the Basic Flow of Events, steps 1-7.

8. The customer selects the PayPal payment type on the order form.
9. The order form sends the order total and the company PayPal account name to the PayPal site.
10. The PayPal site displays a payment form to the customer.
11. The customer enters his or her PayPal payment information into the PayPal site.
12. The PayPal site sends the payment information to the order form.

The basic flow resumes at step 11.

Customer Pays by Cash
=====================
This is an error. We do not accept payment by cash.

Customer Pays by some other method
==================================
This is an error. We only accept payment by credit card, check, money order, or Paypal.

My basic rule for handling alternatives is this: If the alternative is short, just 1 or 2 steps, then put the alternative inline to the Basic Flow of Events as described in a previous tip. If the alternative is longer, then make a separate alternative flow of events.

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Now it is your turn. How do you handle alternatives to the Basic Flow of Events?

Add alternatives to your existing use cases. If your company does not have a standard, try different approaches to see what works best for you.

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Copyright 2007 Wyyzzk, Inc.

Article used with permission from Wyyzzk, Inc.s Resources for Business Analysts website. This website of reports and tips contains information to help you succeed as a Business Analyst in IT.

You are invited to republish this article on your site.

Geri Schneider Winters has been a mentor and consultant to companies from Fortune 50 to startups. Sick Sensor software engineer for over 20 years, she assists companies in describing, documenting, and creating their business processes and software systems. A popular author, speaker, and trainer, Geri has worked throughout the USA, Canada, and the UK. Geri is the primary author of the popular book "Applying Use Cases: A Practical Guide" from Addison-Wesley publishers.