Data Flow Diagram
Data Flow Diagram
flow diagram (DFD) is a picture of the movement of data between external entities and the processes and data stores within a system
Shipping Confirmation
Order Data Payment Invoice Manage Accounts Receivable 5.0 Accounting Data Accounts Receivable Data 4.0 Order Data
D2
Produce Reports
ACCOUNTING
DFD SYMBOLS
Yourdon & Coad Gane & Sarson
Process
Data Store
Data Flow
PROCESS
1.0 Services Performed Invoice
Create Invoice
Work
or actions performed on data (inside the system) Labels should be verb phrases Receives input data and produces output
RULE 1: PROCESS
Can
have more than one outgoing data flow or more than one incoming data flow
1.0
Submitted Work
3.0
Gross Pay
RULE 2: PROCESS
Can
1.0
Order
2.0
Accepted Order
Verify Order Assemble Order
Inventory Change
PROCESS: CORRECT/INCORRECT?
Gray Hole :
Date Of Birth
5.0
Final Grade
Calculate Grade
Spontaneous Generation :
4.0
Policy Number Payment Amount
Black Hole :
2.0 .
Hours Worked
Pay Rate
DATA STORE
D1 Students
Is
used in a DFD to represent data that the system stores Labels should be noun and adjectives phrases
D1
Daily Payments
Daily Payment
CUSTOMER
Invoice
Verify Order
External
entity that is origin or destination of data (outside the system) Is the singular form of a department, outside organization, other IS, or person Labels should be noun phrases Source Entity that supplies data to the system Sink Entity that receives data from the system
RULE: SOURCE/SINK
Must
Bank Deposit
A process to another process A process to an external entity A process to a data store An external entity to another external entity An external entity to a data store
CONTEXT DIAGRAM
Top-level
view of IS Shows the system boundaries, external entities that interact with the system, and major information flows between entities and the system. Example: Order system that a company uses to enter orders and apply payments against a customers balance
LEVEL-0 DFD
Shows
the systems major processes, data flows, and data stores at a high level of abstraction When the Context Diagram is expanded into DFD level-0, all the connections that flow into and out of process 0 needs to be retained.
Top-down strategy
Create the high-level diagrams (Context Diagram), then lowlevel diagrams (Level-0 diagram), and so on
Bottom-up strategy
LOWER-LEVEL DIAGRAMS
Functional
Decomposition
An iterative process of breaking a system description down into finer and finer detail Uses a series of increasingly detailed DFDs to describe an IS
Balancing
The conservation of inputs and outputs to a data flow process when that process is decomposed to a lower level Ensures that the input and output data flows of the parent DFD are maintained on the child DFD
Exercise: When customers place orders on the companys Web site, the system checks to see if the items are in stock, issues a status message to the customer, and generates a shipping order to the warehouse, which fills the order. When the order is shipped, the customer is billed. The system also produces various reports. Draw a context diagram for the order system Draw DFD diagram 0 for the order system
Customer Warehouse Accounting 1.0 Check Status 2.0 Issue Status Messages 3.0 Generate Shipping Order 4.0 Manage Accounts Receivable 5.0 Produce Reports
Processes
Data Stores
Order In-Stock Request 1.0 Order Data Status Data 2.0 Status Message Shipping Order 3.0 Order Data Invoice Shipping Confirmation 4.0 Payment Accounting Data Accounts Receivable Data 5.0 Order Data Inventory Reports
Status Message
Shipping Order
Invoice
Order System
Shipping Confirmation
Inventory Reports
ACCOUNTING
Order Data Payment Invoice Manage Accounts Receivable 5.0 Accounting Data Accounts Receivable Data 4.0 Order Data
D2
Produce Reports
ACCOUNTING