Guideline: Users, Actors and Roles

Metadata

• Author: unified-am.com
• Full Title: Guideline: Users, Actors and Roles
• Category: #articles
• Document Tags: testing
• URL: https://www.unified-am.com/UAM/UAM/guidances/guidelines/uam_user-actor-role_8210ACA7.html

Highlights

• The actors defined above, on the other hand, may interact with multiple business activities. The following are examples of potential business activities for a customer actor: • Purchase - purchase a product from the enterprise • Support - get support for a purchased product from the enterprise A single physical user of a business, equated to an actor, may interact with multiple business activities; for example a "customer" may interact with the "purchase" business activity or the "support" activity. Also, the same physical user can be several different actors with the system, for example a person acting as a "customer" at one point may act as a "supplier" at another point. This means that one and the same person can embody instances of different actors—and different physical people may interact with the organization as the same actor. (View Highlight)

New highlights added August 2, 2023 at 11:36 AM

• To understand the business, its activities and tasks one must understand who the business interacts with; that is, who puts demands on it, or is interested in its output. The different interactions are executed by and represented as actors, with a role defining a set of related skills, competencies, and responsibilities required to perform the associated activity. Roles are associated with and defined by the specific business activities and tasks with which they interact. Therefore a role is equated to the business behavior or activities, and by extension the responsibilities, of the role as it interacts with the system. An actor can assume multiple roles. The figure below clarifies the relationship between users (i.e. physical people, and other systems, that interact with activities), actors and roles in relation to the activities and tasks within the system. The definitions and relationships are slightly different than the UML and RUP definitions. Actors are very similar to UML and RUP; however the concept and usage of role is expanded and clarified along with their relationship to actors and users. (View Highlight)
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