This book shows how, with UML, simple models of business processes and specification models can be created and read with little effort. Most books deal with UML almost in its entirety. However, often lack of time, previous knowledge, or motivation to deal with the topic with the necessary intensity prevents us from understanding the material completely and putting it into action. This book is meant for exactly these cases. It presents UML only partially and in a simplified manner. We put together those parts of UML whose application has proven to be practical.

Chapter 1 introduces us to UML and lists the advantages of using UML as a Modeling Language.

Chapter 2 introduces us to the case study. The purpose of choosing a case study is to provide a coherent example through the chapters of this book. The chapter also explains several basic terms and concepts like models, views, diagrams, information systems, methods, and notations. The models and views provided by this book help choose the most suitable model for a requirement specification.

Chapter 3 discusses the construction of business system models. It explains the benefits of the different views in a business system and discusses the elements of each view. It also provides instructions about how to construct use case diagrams.

Chapter 4 illustrates how a conceptual model of an IT system can be developed with the help of UML.

Chapter 5 describes the integration of the IT system into its environment. It discusses how to model the messages that are exchanged between the various IT systems, and the processes that are necessary to exchange these messages.

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New terms and important words are introduced in a bold-type font. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this: "clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen".

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