3. System diagrams

The system diagram above is a very basic example, but the essentials are shown. Namely the system is shown as a collection of sub-systems and classes of people (employee) interacting with the system. Arrows and labels describe the direction and nature of the interaction.

For example, an employee sends a request for information to the company intranet, this then interrogates one or more company databases to obtain the information. It then sends back a nicely formatted version of the information.

System diagrams come in many forms - it is down to the skill of the system analyst to create an effective one.

Note that system diagrams are used to capture the nature of the current system. They are also used in the next 'design' stage to document how the new system will work.