BPMN Business Process Modeling Notation

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BPMNBusiness Process Modeling Notation

• SYSC 4805/6 - Winter 2009

Group 6 Syed Atif Ali (100661113) Trevor Reid
(100659294) Rahul Rohra (100670552) Linda Hillis
(100666520)
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Agenda

• Introduction to BPMN
• Graphical Elements
• Diagram views with BPMN
• Evaluation
• Conclusion

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Business ProcessES

• A set of related tasks or activities which
  produce a specific service or product for a
  customer or group of customers
• The field of Business Process Management (BPM)
  attempts to optimize business processes

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BPM Life-Cycle
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Business Process Diagram (BPD)
Business Process Visual ARCHITECT 2.0 User's
Guide online Last Accessed March 20 2009,
Available at URL http//ds80-237-184-67.dedicated
.hosteurope.de/media/documents/bpva20ug/html/Ch06_
Business_Process_Diagram_Samples/Ch06_Business_Pro
cess_Diagram_Samples.html
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BPMN

• Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)
• Defines a standard way of representing business
  processes in Business Process Diagrams (BPD)
• Goals
• Standard graphical notation
• Intuitive and understandable
• Bridge the gap between business analysts and
  developers

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GRAPHICAL eLEMENTS

• Purpose
• Symbolic
• Instant recognition
• Differentiate
• Four categories
• Flow Objects
• Connecting Objects
• Swimlanes
• Artifacts

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Flow Objects

• These are the core elements of a BPD.
• Three types
• Event
• Activity
• Gateway

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Flow ObjectsEvent

• What is an event?
• Represented by a circle.
• Three different types
• Start Event
• Intermediate Event
• End Event
• Can have a trigger or a result.
• Used to start, interrupt or end a flow.

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Flow ObjectsACTIVITY

• What is an activity?
• Represented by a rounded edge rectangle.
• Two different types
• Task
• Sub-Process
• Sub-Process can be included by other processes.

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Flow ObjectsGateway

• What is a gateway?
• Helps diverge or converge the sequence flow.
• Represented by a diamond.
• Branching.
• Forking.
• Merging.
• Joining of paths.

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Connecting objects

• Helps connect the flow objects.
• Three types
• Sequence Flow
• Depicts the order of execution of the flow
  objects.
• Message Flow
• Depicts the flow of messages between two process
  participants.
• Associations
• Associates data, text and artifacts with flow
  objects.
• Used to show inputs and outputs of activities.

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swimlanes

• Illustrates different functional capabilities or
  responsibilities.
• Two types

• Pool
• Depicts different business entities/participants.
• Sequence flow cannot cross the boundary of the
  pool.
• Message flow used for communication with another
  pool.

• Lanes
• Depicts closely related but distinct
  participants.
• Sequence flow can cross over lane boundary.
• Message flow cannot be used between two lanes.

Name
Name
Name
Name
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artifacts

• Help specify details.
• Do not alter sequence flow.
• Modelers can create their own to add more details
  about how the process is performed.
• Three pre-defined types are
• Data Objects
• Show how data is required or produced by
  activities.
• Group
• Grouping for better analysis/documention.
• Annotations

Annotation provides extra information. Analogous
to comments.
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Internal markers

• Additional details can be added to core elements.
• Adds higher level of precision to the model.
• Example of internal markers to the events.

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Views of BPMN

• Internal business processes
• Focus on the point of view of a single business
  organization.
• Defines activities that are not visible to the
  public
• Can be developed in parallel with other business
  elements

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Views of BPMN

• Collaborative B2B Processes
• Interaction between two or more business entities
  only
• Defines interactions that are public for each
  participant
• Shows less internal detail of the entities

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Collaborative B2B Processes
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SubProcess EXAmple
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Mapping BPMN

• A bridge from the business process to a technical
  executable
• BPMN includes a partial mapping to Business
  Process Execution Language (BPEL)
• Changes in the BPMN model do not update in the
  BPEL code

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When to use bpmn

• UML Activity Diagrams similar to BPMN
• Different approaches
• UML system view, object-oriented approach
• BPMN customer view, process-oriented approach
• BPMN geared towards business analysts
• BPMN constructs are simplified
• UML notation too bloated

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A good use of bpmn
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A bad use of bpmn
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But why is it a bad use?

• BPMN does not allow differentiation of multiple
  elements
• Many ASPs involved in the bidding
• But which ASPs placed bids and which did not?
• Cannot identify winning ASP, cannot assign task!
• BPMN lacks reference passing
• TaskPlanner cannot know which ASP completed a
  task
• It cannot even know if the task was completed

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Other Disadvantages of bpmn

• No concept of process roles
• Cannot assign people responsibilities
• Difficult to define executions
• Think processor deployment functionality in
  RoseRT
• Semantic bloat
• Many variations of constructs defined,
  specifically to map to executable models
• Business analysts only use some constructs

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Future directions of bpmn

• No standardized storage format
• Cannot exchange models between different vendor
  tools
• Format called XPDL working to solve this problem
• BPMN has not formalized execution semantics
• e.g., how is exception handling done?
• Many tools disagree with each other
• Work on BPMN meta-model aims to improve this

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Conclusion

• Alternative development paradigm
• Allows process-modeling for business analysts
• User-centric approach rather than a
  system-centric approach
• Eases understanding and communication of business
  processes within and across organisations
• Cannot be applied in all scenarios