Business process models and its support in Visual Paradigm Zuzana Brťková

What is business process? A business process is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product. This process can be broken down into a sequence of smaller and usually simpler processes or activities performed by a person or system

Purpose of modeling processes Control of current processes Improving current processes Designing new processes (reflecting business requirements and inovating) Handling interactions between processes Automatizing processes

Business process model and notation BPMN is a graphical representation and standartized notation for specifying and modeling business processes Its idea and notation is similar to UML, but it's not a part of UML BPMN is developed by Business Process Management Initiative, which is now part of Object Management Group (author of UML)

Elements of BPMN Flow Objects: events, activities, gateways Connecting Objects: sequence and message flow, association Swim Lanes: pool, lane Artifacts: data object, group, annotation Basic BPMN involves four element categories, divided into sub-categories:

Flow objects Flow objects are main describing elements in BPMN. They are related to information flow in modeled process. Three basic types: Events Activities Gateways

Types of flow objects 1)Events: denotes “something that happens to the business“, represented by a circle with an icon within, which denotes the type of an event Start event: acts as a process trigger, can only be of catch type Intermediate event: represents something that happens between the start and end events, can be throw or catch End event: result of a process, only throw

Types of flow objects 2) Activities: Denotes “something that must be done“, a piece of work performed in business process. It´s represented with a rounded-corner rectangle 3) Gateways: Determines forking or merging paths (flow) through a business process. A gateway is represented with a diamond shape.

Connecting objects Serve to connect flow objects together or with artifacts. Three basic types: Sequence flows: determine the sequence of activities Message flows: messages between process participants Associations: associates text or data with other elements

Swim lanes A visual mechanism that organizes and categorizes activities Usually express roles of participants in a flowchart Two types: pools and lanes Pool can include multiple lanes – lane is a subset of its pool

Types of swim lanes Pools: represents major participants in a process (usually different organizations). Pools can be open, showing its internal details, or collapsed, hiding internal details (blackbox) Lanes: organizes and categorizes activities within a pool according to their functions and roles.

Artifacts Data objects: show the reader which data is required or produced in an activity. Group: is represented with a rounded-corner rectangle and dashed lines. The group is used to group different activities but does not affect the flow in the diagram. Annotation: is used to give the reader of the model/diagram an understandable impression. Allow developers to bring some more information into the model/diagram. There are three pre-defined artifacts and they are:

Example: Process of ordering

Support in VP As BPMN isn't a part of UML, it doesn't make a standard part of Visual Paradigm modeling abilities But exist a tool: Business Process Visual ARCHITECT which fully supports BPMN

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