component of the methodology and the Unicorn
Universe Business Modelling Language (uuBML).
uuProcess virtualizes real-world objects using
artifacts and models organizations from using a Static
View that consists of artifacts (e.g. students, lecturers,
assignments, etc.) and associations between artifacts,
and a Dynamic View that describes the behavior of
the system and models business processes. Artifacts
represent real-world objects that constitute the
application system and include a model of their
lifecycle. A business process consists of a sequence
of activities with clearly defined objectives such as
producing a product, or generating added value for a
customer. Activities can result in changes in the state
of an artifact that progress the artifact through its
lifecycle stages.
uuProcess was initially inspired by existing
system development and management methodologies
including ITIL (ITIL, 2014), Prince2 (Lianying et al.,
2012), and RUP (Manalil, 2011, Kruchten, 2004), and
later extended and enhanced based on extensive
practical experience with management of
organizations and the development of software
(Kovář, 2011). In the following sections we describe
a subset of the uuProcess methodology with focus on
artifact modeling.
3.1 uuProcess Artifacts
Artifacts constitute basic IS building blocks and hold
information about tangible objects (e.g. cars,
products, books, etc.) and intangible objects (e.g.
product defects, enquiries, etc.) (Kruchten, 2004).
The content of a uuProcess artifact (e.g. a company
car) stores descriptive information such as car
manufacturer, technical specifications, photographs
of the car, etc. Activities related to the company car
including car purchase, registration, insurance,
maintenance records, and car sale are managed within
the artifact lifecycle. Additional documents such as
the lease and insurance contracts, registration
documents, etc. are stored in related artifacts and
accessed via references.
As illustrated in Figure 1, uuProcess artifacts are
based on templates called Meta-artifacts (e.g.
employee contract Meta-artifact) with pre-defined
internal structure and a lifecycle that can be further
customized for specific use case scenarios. Business
process activities are closely related to the artifact
lifecycle and their execution is controlled via access
privileges assigned to roles, so that for example only
subject coordinators can set student assignments.
Each artifact belongs to a single Business Territory
that typically maps to an organization, so that
multiple organizations can coexist on a single multi-
tenant Unicorn Universe platform.
uuProcess artifacts are typically created as a result
of activities and consist of four basic components:
Properties, Sheets, Attachments and Comments.
Properties store structured information that can be
accessed programmatically and consist of simple
elements (i.e. numbers, strings, dates, references, etc.)
or complex (structured) elements (e.g. JSON files).
An artifact can contain multiple sheets - a semi-
structured XML documents that contain different
types of objects, including tables, images, paragraphs,
chapters and HTML5 widgets. Comments represent
notes related to the content of sheets. Other types of
objects (e.g. binary files) can be included as
attachments and form an integral part of the artifact.
The system maintains versions of sheets, attachments
and comments as these objects are modified
throughout the artifact life cycle.
Artifact life cycle can comprise three generic
types of activities: Tasks, Messages and Time
Reservations. Tasks are activities that require a
response from the user that the activity was assigned
to; messages have a similar function to tasks, but do
not require a response. Time reservation are typically
used to record meetings in a diary.
Access to artifact content is controlled using
access privileges that are derived from the
organizational structure and managed using Roles.
Most of the authorization rules are derived from use
cases and are inherited from corresponding meta-
artifacts. uuProcess uses three basic mechanisms for
access control: Security Levels, Implicit Access
Rights, and Explicit Access Rights. Each artifact is
associated with a security level and the system
ensures that only users with the appropriate security
level (i.e. equal to or higher than the artifact security
level) can access the information contained within the
artifact.
Implicit rights are derived from the organizational
structure and are assigned to roles to enable
authorized users to access artifacts in various modes
(i.e. read, write, update, etc.). Explicit rights are
granted by the artifact owner (creator) and enable
individual roles to execute use cases on the artifacts
independently of the organizational structure.
3.2 Visual Modelling Language
uuBML
The Unicorn Universe Business Modelling Language
(uuBML) is a tool for visual modelling and
communication developed by Unicorn and used
extensively for modeling information systems for
clients as well as for communication within the
Unicorn organizations. A key uuBML feature is that
it is designed for business communications making