Activity diagram templates and examples

Activity diagram with swimlanes

Paid Account

Activity diagram with swimlanes

Activity diagram

Paid Account

Activity diagram

Frequently asked questions about activity diagrams

An activity diagram is a type of UML behavior diagram that is essentially a flowchart showing activities performed by a system. It helps visualize workflows and processes, allowing business and development teams to understand the same process and behavior.

The main symbols include a black circle for the start node, round-edged rectangles for actions, arrows for control flows, diamonds for decision nodes, and an outlined black circle for the end node.

While an activity diagram is essentially a flowchart, it is part of the UML standard and uses specialized symbols for starting, ending, merging, or receiving steps in the flow to model system behavior and processes.

Use an activity diagram to demonstrate algorithm logic, describe steps in a use case, illustrate business processes or workflows, simplify complicated use cases, or model software architecture elements like methods and functions.

Open a blank document, add UML shape libraries, drag symbols from the toolbox to the canvas, and model the process flow by drawing lines between shapes. Lucidchart also provides UML templates to help you get started faster, or you can generate an activity diagram with Lucid AI.

Yes, activity diagrams can illustrate concurrent activities using fork and join symbols, where a fork splits a single activity flow into two concurrent activities and a join combines them back into a single flow.

A decision node represents a conditional branch in the flow, symbolized by a diamond shape. It includes a single input and two or more outputs with condition text showing the different paths available.

An end node marks the completion of all flows in an activity, while a flow final symbol represents the end of only a specific process flow within a single activity.

Everything you need to make a UML diagram

In addition to our online UML diagram tool, Lucidchart offers support and training resources to help you branch out to any type of diagram.

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