Artifact: Business Use Case
 Business Use Case |
A business use case (class) defines a set of business use-case instances, where each instance is a sequence of actions a business performs that yields an observable result of value to a particular business actor. |
| UML representation: | Use Case |
| Worker: | Business-Process Analyst |
| Optionality: | Can be excluded. |
| Templates: | Business Use-Case Specification template |
| Sample Reports: | Report: Business Use Case |
| More information: | Guideline: Business Use Case |
Purpose 
The following people use the business use cases:
- People who analyze, design, and implement the system to understand the context of the system to be built.
- System analysts to derive requirements of the system.
- Managers to better understand the context, purpose, and importance of the system to be built.
Properties
Property Name |
Brief Description |
UML Representation |
| Name | The name of the business use case. | The attribute "Name" on model element. |
| Brief Description | A brief description of the role and purpose of the business use case. | Tagged value, of type "short text". |
| Performance Goals | A specification of the metrics relevant to the business use case, and a definition of their goals. | Tagged value, of type "formatted text". |
| Workflow | A textual description of the workflow the business use case represents. The flow should describe what the business does to deliver value to a business actor, not how the business solves its problems. The description should be understandable by anyone within the business. | Tagged value, of type "formatted text". |
| Special Requirements | The business use-case characteristics not covered by the workflow as it has been described. | Tagged value, of type "short text". |
| Extension points | A list of locations within the flow of events of the business use case at which additional behavior can be inserted using the extend-relationship. | Tagged value, of type "short text". |
| Relationships | The relationships, such as communicates-associations, uses-and extends-relationships, in which the use case participates. | Owned by an enclosing package, via the aggregation "owns". |
| Activity Diagrams | These diagrams show the structure of the workflow. | Participants are owned via the aggregation "types" and "relationships" on a collaboration traced to the use case. |
| Use-Case Diagrams | These diagrams show the relationships involving the use case. | Participants are owned via the aggregation "types" and "relationships" on a collaboration traced to the use case. |
| Illustrations of the Workflow | Hand-drawn sketches or results from storyboarding sessions. | Tagged value, of uninterpreted type. |
Timing
Business use cases are identified and possibly briefly outlined early in the inception phase, to help in defining the scope of the project. The business use cases that are relevant for the system to be built are then described in more detail within the elaboration phase.
Responsibility
A business-process analyst is responsible for the integrity of the use case, ensuring that:
- The business use case correctly describes how the organization does its business.
- The Workflow description is readable and suits its purpose.
- The uses-and extends-relationships originating from the business use case are justified and kept consistent.
- The role of the business use case where it is involved in communicates-associations is clear and intuitive.
- The diagrams describing the business use case and its relationships are readable and suit their purpose.
- The Special Requirements are readable and suit their purpose.
- The Preconditions are readable and suit their purpose.
- The Postconditions are readable and suit their purpose.
It is recommended that the person responsible for a business use case is also responsible for its enclosing business use-case package; for more information, refer to Guidelines: Business Use-Case Model.
