An interaction reference is used to represent one sequence diagram in the body of another. This feature allows you to modularize and reuse commonly-used interactions across a range of sequence diagrams.
An interaction reference can be created in the following diagrams:
Interaction activities are similar, but are able to represent a sequence diagram, communication diagram, or interaction overview diagram. Interaction activities can be created in the following diagrams:
For an interaction activity, right-click the activity and select to see the referenced diagram displayed in the symbol. Select Adjust to read-only view from the contextual menu to automatically resize the symbol to optimize the display of the referenced diagram.
Example: Interaction Reference in Activity Diagram
In the example below, the user must log in before passing a request to the account page of a website. As the log in process will form a part of many interactions with the site, it has been abstracted to another sequence diagram called "Log In", and is represented here by an interaction reference.
