Flowcharting

STRUCTURES
ITMGT 20.03 | ITMGT 20.12 | ITMGT 20.51
BASIC INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS IN BUSINESS
 FLOWCHART
03 / STRUCTURE
What is a
FLOWCHARTING
STRUCTURE?
The combination of shapes and
flow of process in a flowchart is its
structure.
As you create flowcharts, you’ll
notice some combination of
elements that you’ll use regularly.
The following are the most
common structures that you may
encounter.
SEQUENCE
Sequences are instructions or tasks are
executed in the order that they
appear. This is the simplest logic
structure as it has no branching.

Note: Branching is when the flow can

diverge and different actions can
happen depending on certain
conditions in a flow chart, continued:
DECISIONS
Decisions are instructions or tasks
that are executed based on the
satisfaction of a condition. This is
usually expressed using the
“if-then-else” concept. Decisions are
always binary, which means that it’s
either True or False.

Note that they are always binary or

have only two branches, usually a
question of yes or no, or true or false.
If there is a need for more than two
branches, multiple decisions can be
nested or stacked together
ITERATION / LOOPING
An iteration is a sequence with a
decision pointing back to the
start of the sequence. This is
when instructions are repeatedly
executed. Depending on the
construction of the loop, this can
repeat infinitely, a set number of
times, once, or the contents of
the loop may not even get
executed at all.
Nesting
NESTING
There sometimes comes a need to put
logic structures within other logic
structures to describe certain tasks.

These are described as loops within

other loops, decisions within other
decisions or any combination of each
contained in the other. The term we
use to describe this is nesting. This is
when structures are nested within
another structure.
NESTING
Since decisions are restricted to only
be binary, multiple decisions are
needed to describe a structure that
has more than two paths.
This leads to the construction of a
decision tree. It is called a tree as
there can be multiple branches to
the tree, which leads to multiple
paths taken in the process.
 FLOWCHART
03 / STRUCTURE