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I'm drawing a flow diagram which should visualize the communication between 4 services I created.

Now I've got a question I'm not quite sure about. There are two ways the services could be started. Is it allowed to have multiple starting-points in a flow chart?

And: do I have to visualize error handling, like a service not being available? I think this doesn't belong in a flow chart, perhaps?

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  • A flowchart is not the tool for the job. Nov 25, 2012 at 22:42

1 Answer 1

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If you are using flowcharts, then you can have 3 separate flowcharts. 1 to represent the overall view showing the decision that leads to initiating the service in the 2 different ways you say you have in your case. The other two diagrams will detail the process in each scenario. Flow charting is a loose technique with hardly any rules beyond what the shapes mean. This causes an inconsistency problem sometimes.

For documenting OO systems, I suggest you use UML 2.0+ and in particular Activity diagrams (similar to flow charts) and Sequence diagrams as well as use cases.

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  • But there is no 'best practice', isn't it? I'm not quite sure how to display the communication over a MOM in an activity diagramm
    – Mirco
    Nov 25, 2012 at 20:31
  • I am not familiar with MOM.
    – NoChance
    Nov 25, 2012 at 22:12

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