AIS Chapter 3

Documentation

Narratives, flowcharts, diagrams, and other written materials that explain how a system works.

narrative description

Written, step-by-step explanation of system components and how they interact.

business process diagram

A visual way to describe the different steps or activities in a business process, providing a reader with an easily understood pictorial view of what takes place in a business process.

flowchart

An analytical technique that uses a standard set of symbols to describe pictorially some aspect of an IS in a clear, concise, and logical manner; used to record how business processes are performed and how documents flow through an organization.

document flowcharts

Illustrate the flow of documents and data among areas of responsibility within an organization, from cradle to grave; shows where each document originates, its distribution, its purposes, and its ultimate disposition.

internal control flowchart

Used to describe, analyze, and evaluate internal controls, including identifying system strengths, weaknesses, and inefficiencies.

system flowchart

Depicts the relationships among system input, processing, storage, and output.

program flowchart

Illustrates the sequence of logical operations performed by a computer in executing a program; describes the specific logic to perform a process shown on a system flowchart

data flow diagram

A graphical description of the flow of data within an organization, including data sources/destinations, data flows, transformation processes, and data storage.

data source

The entity that produces or sends the data entered into a system.

data destination

The entity that receives data produced by a system.

data flow

The movement of data among processes, stores, sources, and destinations

processes

Actions that transform data into other data or information.

data store

The place or medium where system data is stored.

context diagram

Highest-level DFD; a summary-level view of a system, showing the data processing system, its input(s) and output(s), and their sources and destinations.

process mining

a technique to discover, monitor, and improve processes that are actually occurring in a business by visualizing the information contained in an event log.

event log

a file used in process mining that records (1) a description of an event that occurred, (2) a timestamp of when the event occurred, and (3) a unique identifier that links related types of events.

process variant

a sequence of activities that a transaction follows in a process mining visualization.