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Problem – Resolving Conflicts among
Competing Actions that can occur as a Result of an Event
When a business process has several activities that can be performed simultaneously, some mechanism for indicating which activities are more important is needed. The priority of activities should be able to be specified in absolute terms or in relative terms to each other. The net result should indicate an ordering for performing the activities.
Solution
Define absolute and relative priority levels to handle conflict resolution.
Example – Listing
Processing
A real estate company prescribes that upon securing a listing that a number of activities should take place. First, the listing should be submitted to the multiple listing service. A follow-up seller's packet should be sent before advertising copy and photos are produced. The priority of actions is dictate by legal obligations as well as good business practices.
|
Action |
Submit listing to MLS | |
|
Priority type |
Absolute | |
|
Priority level |
1 | |
|
Action |
Seller packet | |
|
Priority type |
Relative | |
|
Relative Placement |
Before | |
|
Relative action |
Ad copy | |
UML Representation and Related
Patterns
The Priority business rule pattern does not directly map to any UML model element. However, they are most closely related to PseudoState model elements that are designated as a fork kind. This pattern shares an affinity with the Ordering business rule pattern, however the focus here is on activities rather than members of a collection.
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