Designing the Procedure Logic › Action Diagram Terminology

Action Diagram Terminology

Before beginning to use action statements that describe the detailed process or procedure logic, you should become familiar with some terms used in action diagramming.

These terms are defined in the following list:

• Process Action Diagram—A collection of action statements that directly support an elementary process. These statements represent business logic and may be defined during analysis, or deferred until design.
• Action Block—(Process Action Block) A named collection of action statements not directly associated with an elementary process.

  An action block may define:

  • A derivation algorithm for a derived attribute
  • A default algorithm for a basic or designed attribute
  • A business algorithm used to calculate an attribute value in a SET … USING action
  • A business algorithm invoked through a use action
  • Logic for design-specific procedures such as security, operational control, data bridging and conversion, and so forth
• Common Action Block—An action block that is used by more than one process or a process action diagram that is transformed as more than one procedure.
• Procedure Action Diagram—A collection of action statements that directly support a procedure step.
• Business Algorithm—An action block that is invoked through a SET … USING action or through a USE action.
• Action Group—Any bracketed collection of actions in a Process Action Diagram or Process Action Block.

  All statements appearing within a bracket participate in the action group enclosed by the bracket.