Inclusion types and Control elements Sample Clauses

Inclusion types and Control elements. Inclusion types allow describing variability of dynamic parts where some choices have to be made. They only apply on a certain set of relations on which they pose some conditions. Three inclusion types are considered:  AND - indicating an “All of” inclusion type, meaning that all of the relations have to be chosen. Therefore it dictates how many and which specific relations should be used.  OR - indicating a “Some of” inclusion type, meaning that one or more relations have to be chosen. It forces neither a specific amount nor a selection of relations to be used.  XOR - indicating a “One of” inclusion type, meaning that exactly one relation has to be chosen. Therefore it dictates how many, but not which specific relations should be used. An example for employing inclusion types is in a process model where the path splits. Depending on the selected inclusion types either one, some, or all of the outgoing paths should be taken. Using an inclusion type other than “AND” leads to variability. Therefore those are only applied for templates, since those can represent more than one instance. By default, if an inclusion type is missing, assume the “AND” inclusion. Since the inclusion types apply to a set of relations, is has to be possible to somehow group them together. However, because the here presented approach only uses directed relations between two elements, the grouping has to happen through a different element. A solution is achieved by using a Control element with the desired inclusion type for a certain relation type. This control can be part of an already available concept, or be a spate concept if necessary. They can be one of two types: Split or Merge1. The Split indicates that the inclusion type should be applied on the outgoing relations, while the Merge does the same only for incoming relations. Therefore they heavily depend on the direction of modelling. For example in an organisation diagram an Organisational unit would be denoted as an AND-Split on decomposition relations.