Adding Action Pins to activity diagrams

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You can add action pins that represent information or physical objects flowing into or out of action nodes in SysML activity diagrams.

Procedure

Data tokens can be routed by Decision, and the Control nodes, such as Merge, Join, Fork nodes. The token is accessible by the Decision Nodes using the keyword TOKEN in the Properties view window.

Note: You can also add ObjectNodes to SysML activity diagrams. The object nodes are data specifications.

To add elements representing the inputs and outputs in a systems engineering activity diagram, you can use the Diagram Tools.

  1. You can drag and drop on the activity diagram Action Pins, Call Operations, and so on.

    You can click an action node to add a pin to represent an input or output object. Use the Features window to specify the direction,In or Out, of the pin and the type of object flowing through the pin that is typically a block, type, or valueType. You can connect the pin to the corresponding pin or pins of other action nodes to define the sequence of actions based on the object flow.

    The pin named RETURN is the pin used to output the return value of an operation. You should not create your own RETURN pin because it is reserved for the return value of the operation.

    Activity Diagram icon

    The action is passing a TOKEN to another action. The TOKEN passes the data between actions. Use the TOKEN to access data on the Decision nodes. The Decision nodes do not have pins, so instead you can use the TOKEN to manipulate the data. To have the action TOKEN oriented, see the "Simulation of token-based activities by systems engineers" topic.

    Note: When using call behavior actions, pins can only be added to the action node by adding them as pins to the corresponding activity. To display the newly added pins, right-click the action node and select Update/Create Activity Pins. You might also select the type of name displayed for the pin using the Display Options option.
  2. To draw an object node, click the Object Node button Object Node button, and click in the activity diagram to position the node.
    1. Display the Features window for the object node to select a Stereotype, an In State, and what the node Represents.
  3. To open the animated activity diagram, click on the Go Action button Activity Diagram icon