How to Draw UML Activity Diagram Online
3 min readApr 18, 2018
This is a step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to create UML activity diagram directly within your web browser.
What is UML Activity Diagram?
UML Activity diagram is a kind of UML behavioral diagram used to visualize the workflows of stepwise activities and actions. Activity Diagrams are often used to describe the primary steps involved in delivering a system service or functionality.
How to Create UML Activity Diagram Online?
In this section, we will go over the steps involved to draw a UML Activity Diagram online.
- Sign-up to Visual Paradigm Online, a web-based drawing software.
- There are four modules (Drawing Tool, Agile Tool, Customer Journey Map, Task Management). Opening the Drawing Tool.
- From the left of the screen, select Activity Diagram.
- Click on either Blank Activity Diagram to create one from scratch, or click on an Activity Diagram template to get started with it.
- Draw your Activity Diagram. Enjoy!
Here is an example Activity Diagram created with Visual Paradigm Online:
Essential UML editing features
A good UML diagram software should let you create UML diagrams quickly and easily. Here are some features that helps:
- Resource Catalog: Create and connect shapes directly with Resource Catalog
- Inline editing: Directly name and rename UML shapes without the need of going through any dialog box. This includes the naming of member level details such as class attributes and operations.
- Smooth Sequence Diagram editing: The editing of Sequence Diagram is always a problem in many UML tools due to the complexity of diagram. A good UML diagramming tool should provide features such as Resource Catalog and alignment guide that can help you develop a Sequence Diagram easily and correctly — without separated shapes.
- Re-use shapes in other diagrams: Keep commonly used shapes in a palette and use it in other diagrams.
- Draw with your own shapes: Incorporate your own images into your own drawings.
