Please note : This help page is not for the latest version of Enterprise Architect. The latest help can be found here.

Sequence Element Activations

Sequence elements in a Sequence diagram have Activation rectangles drawn along their lifelines. These rectangles describe the time the element is active during the overall period of processing. This visual representation can be suppressed by right-clicking the Sequence diagram, and selecting 'Suppress Activations'.

In general, Enterprise Architect calculates the period of activation for you, but in some cases you might want to fine tune the rectangle length. There are several context menu options on a sequence message that you can use to accomplish this. To access the context menu, right-click on the message and select 'Activations'.

A more convenient way to change activation levels is directly on the diagram. Whenever appropriate, left arrows and/or right arrows display on specific connectors. In this diagram, see connector 1.3. Click on the arrow to raise or lower the activation level.

Context menu options

Option	Description
Start New Message Group	Starts off a new round of processing in the current diagram. This enables you to describe more than one processing scenario in a single diagram.
Extend Source Activation Down	Forces an element to stay active beyond the normal processing period. This could be used to express an element that continues its own processing concurrently with other processes.
Extend Source Activation Up	Forces an element's activation upwards.
End Source Activation	Truncates the activation of the source element after the current message. This is useful for expressing an asynchronous message after which the source element becomes idle.
End Target Activation	Ends a Forced Activation started by the 'Extend Source Activation' options.
Raise Activation Level	Displays on the context menu only where its use is appropriate. For example, after a self-message the next message starts by default at a lower activation level but the 'Raise Activation Level' command displays on the context menu to enable you to raise its level.
Lower Activation Level	Displays on the context menu only where its use is appropriate.