Data Mapping in UML
Data Mapping in UML
It’s often the case that we need to map various attributes on entities into other entities. For example you might need to migrate data from one system to another and structurally the same concepts are held slightly differently. Documenting these mappings is not obvious in the UML, so below I’ve provided a simple example of how a composite structure diagram could be used to provide the mappings. Some notes have been added where conversions need to be performed and these could be represented more formally using diagram references to behavioural diagrams such as sequence or activity diagrams. This is quite possibly not 100% UML compliant / intended usage; but it provides a tool for this type of mapping which otherwise seems to be lacking in the standard UML specification.
Note: The collaboration represents the concept being mapped (in this case a customer/client) and is source / target agnostic.
We were recently asked a question about this article in regard to individuals class attributes like Customer.FirstName. The question was: “Does EA have the ability to execute a search on where FirstName is referenced?” Phil Chudley, Principal Consultant at Dunstan Thomas Consulting, had this to say: The link between an attribute (for example Person.FirstName is known in EA as a Link to Element Feature. This is created using the following steps (I will use Person.FirstName and First Name as an example): Create a relationship, for example a Dependency, starting at Person and ending at First Name. Optionally set the stereotype for… Read more »