The UAF Operational domain includes viewpoints that enable you to capture how your organization works, operationally, at a logical, business level. Core viewpoints are the:
•Operational Process viewpoints – which enable you to capture the major Activities of the organization, and what data and resources they process, and then the business processes that show the orchestration of how the organization does those activities. In System Architect you can model the Operational Activities in a UML Activity diagram-type view, or a BPMN-type view. You can then model the processes of that orchestrate the Operational Activities in a BPMN diagram.
•Operational Structure and Connectivity viewpoints – which enables you to capture the logical organizations, or Performers – Operational Performers – that do the activities. When an Operational Performer does an Operational Activity, it is performing a Role in the Organization. This is a key point in UAF and the defense architecture frameworks on which it was based – DoDAF, NAF, MODAF, and DNDAF.
Operational Exchanges and Needlines
After modeling the flow of resources between Operational Activities, and what Operational Performers perform what Operational Activities, you can calculate the Operational Exchanges of resources and data exchanged between the Roles that Operational Performers play. And from that you can calculate the need for Operational Performers to communicate with another – through a logical channel called a Needline. The UAF does not specify Needline in its domain metamodel; a pure UML-profile implementation will have Operational Exchanges drawn from/to Operational Performers. System Architect keeps Needline, as an extension to UAF, as a relationship line between Operational Performers that harbors the Operational Exchanges between the Roles – to keep consistent with the domain metamodels of DoDAF, NAF, MODAF, and DNDAF.