The system area map provides a high-level graphical view of your enterprise's present or future applications.

Compared to other diagrams, the system area map has a relatively loose, simple format. The idea is to show general relationships among application areas without getting into detailed interfaces. Usually the diagram contains lines indicating how data in your current system flows from one application area to another.

You can group applications into application areas. The definition of the Application Area symbol contains a list of Actual or Potential applications. Click on the Choices button in the list box to view and drag-and-drop applications that you have modeled into the Actual or Potential Applications list box, or type in the name of new Applications that you think the system will need or has.

A Data Store symbol is where data "rests" when it is neither flowing nor being operated on. A data store can be a database, hard disk or a file on a disk.

You can model the flow of data as it moves between application areas with the Data Flow line. Within the data flow you can model the data elements and data structures used. Data flows can split into two or more flows, or they can join to one from two or more flows.