The subtypes appearing in the life-cycle partitioning represent discrete states of entities at different times during their "lives." Life-cycle analysis examines discrete states of entities at different times during their "lives" to show how process executions can cause an entity to change from one state to another.
Entity type life-cycle analysis helps to ensure that each process:
Consider all entity types that are involved in the development of a business system to see whether life-cycle analysis is performed. During data analysis, not all entity types were given a life-cycle partitioning, either because the lives of their entities are simple or because there are too few differences between states to make it worth defining subtypes.
During activity analysis, considering entity life-cycles was one means of discovering a set of processes. During interaction analysis, life-cycle analysis is not restricted to those entity types where a life-cycle partitioning has already been defined.
Indeed, a more detailed understanding that is developed through interaction analysis cause you to revisit data analysis and define new life-cycle partitioning. Find that an entity has more than one life-cycle because subtypes in its entity type have their own life-cycles, that is, life-cycles that are not shared with other entity types in the same partitioning.
The life-cycle states of an entity is derived from the life-cycles of other related entities. For example, an ORDER is a SHIPPED ORDER if all its ORDER ITEMs are shipped. In this case, it is a matter of business judgment whether the life-cycle of order item is defined formally perhaps where a partial order or batched shipping of orders occur, or only that of order where typically all items are shipped together.
Some processes that affect the states of entities of the type being analyzed lie outside the scope of the project. This require some coordination between development projects to agree a consistent set of processes and entity type life-cycles.
During the early stages of analysis, you often find entity states that overlap and that are not clearly defined or agreed upon by business staff. For complex life-cycles, therefore, seek clear definitions that are practical and acceptable to all groups of system users. This lead to simplifying and improving business processes.
Using CA Gen, entity type life-cycles can be represented in two forms:
The chapter "Analyzing Data" described a special partitioning of an entity type, the life-cycle partitioning. To draw a life-cycle diagram using CA Gen, possible states of entities are defined in a life-cycle partitioning of the entity type.
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