BPMN and Bizagi

Introduction to BPMN and

Bizagi as a modeling tool

By: Mahsa Rezaei

Business and IT are tightly connected;they either succeed or fail together

• Business Process: The required steps to accomplish a specific

business function.

“Representation of what an organization does -- its work -- in order to accomplish a specific purpose or objective”

source: BPMN Modeling and Reference Guide

• Business processes that require automation are implemented and facilitated through IT.

• As business processes change, IT has to change.

IT implementation

Business Processes

Some Hints

Introduction to BPMN

Real Examples

Bizagi as a Process Modeling Tool

What is BPMN Business Process Modeling NotationGraphical notation for drawing business

processes An industry standard developed by the OMG

consortium, a not-for-profit industry groupProvides businesses with the capability of

defining and understanding their procedures through Business Process Diagrams (BPDs)

Aims To provide a standard notation that is readily

understandable by all business stakeholdersTo bridge the communication gap that

frequently occurs between business process design and implementation

To create a common business language understood by all

Why use BPMN?Have become widely acceptedReplaces numerous process modeling

languages, notations and methodsSimple to learn yet powerful enough to depict

the potential complexities of a business process

Vendor neutral with wide tool support (over 45 vendors now officially support the standard)

Why Should You Care? • Processes are at the core of any organisation, yet they

are not always clearly defined, documented or optimised

• The need to bridge the communication gap between business and IT is stronger then ever

• As the rate of change in the business environment increases and with greater pressure to become more efficient; organisations must form a clear view of how their processes operate

• BPMN offers a notation that you can use to document your own processes without ambiguity

BPMN

Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)

• An original development by Business Process Management Initiative to align modelling notations since 2000

• The primary goal – understanding by business stakeholders

• OMG standard since 2005

• Current version 1.2 since Jan 2009

• Version 2 is under development (to be discussed at the end of this webinar)

BPMN standard

9

How?

• Create business process diagrams (BPDs)

• Utilising a defined set of diagram elements (objects)

• Draw each step in the process

• Make use of the relevant diagram elements to document events, activities and decision points

• Show the complete end-to-end process flow from start to finish

BPMN is SIMPLE!Activity

Gateway

Event

Data

آموزش

BPMN

Flow Objects

Connecting Objects

Lanes & Pools

Artifacts

Core BPMN Design Elements

Core BPMN Design Elements

Core BPMN Design ElementsFlow Objects

Event Activity Gateway

SequenceFlow

MessageFlow

Association

Connecting Objects

Data Objects & Artifacts Swimlanes

DataObjectDataStore

Group

Pool

Lane

Connecting Objects

Lanes & Pools

Artifacts

Connecting Objects

اشياي

ارتباط‌دهنده

Lanes & Pools

Artifacts

مصنوعات

Exclusive

Flow objectsThe flow objects are the three core elements of the notation:

Event - A trigger or a result that “happens”

during the course of a business process and

which affect the flow of the Process

Activity – the work that is performed within a

business process

Gateways - are decisions points that are used

to control how sequence flows interact as they

converge and diverge within a process.

Events

An Event is something that “happens” during the courseof a Process or a Choreography. An Event affects theflow of the model and usually have a cause (Trigger) oran impact (Result).

Event graphical representation is a circle.

There’s 3 types of events: Start Events, IntermediateEvents and End Event.

Intermediate Events can be used in regular processdiagrams and can be used as Boundary Events attached to an activity.

Start Events and Intermediate Events can be Interrupting andNon-interrupting.

• Start event produces a token

• End (or finish) event consumes a token

• Intermediate token means that something happened within a business process engine

Event types

• Too many events details

• Recommendations to use: • Mainly “message”

• Sometimes “empty”, “error” and “timer”

Event details

Throw message Catch messageStart message End message

Activities

Activity is a generic term for work thatcompany performs in a Process. An ActivityCan be atomic or non-atomic.

The type of activities that are part of the process are: Task and Sub-Process.

A task can be differenced by markers that represent its type or associated resource.

Sub-Process can be Collapsed or Expanded, and can be differenced by the kind of elements that join in: Sub-process, Transactions, Event Sub Process and Call Activities.

Gateways

A Gateway is used to control the divergence and convergence of sequence flows in a Process or in a choreography.

Gateway will determine branching, forking, merging or joining.

There’s 7 kinds of gateways differed by its internal marker: Exclusive, Inclusive, Parallel, Complex, Event-based, Parallel Event-based and Exclusive Event-based.

=

• Activity02, Activity03 and Activity04 will be executed in parallel; the process will only be continued when each of them is completed

• Logic of tokens is used

Parallel gateway

• A single activity Activity02 or Activity03 or Activity04 will be executed. The choice is based on the logic defined within the gateway G01


Exclusive gateway

• Several activities can be executed in parallel

• It covers functionality of parallel and exclusive gateways


Inclusive gateway

Flow Objects

Lanes & Pools

Artifacts

Connection ObjectsThere’s 6 types or connection objects. Allof them are represented for a line.

Sequence Flow can be Normal, Defaultand Conditional, and always have direction,source and target.

Message Flows are a type of connection objectthat is used to represent collaboration between two process.

Data Association is a line between a Data Object andAn element.

Normal

Default

Conditional

MessageData AssociationAssociation

Connecting objects

A Sequence Flow is used to show the order that activities will be performed in a Process.

A Message Flow is used to show the flow of messages between two entities that are prepared to send and receive them.

An Association is used to associate information and artifacts with flow objects.

• Flow connector represents the sequence of activities within the same pool

• Message connection represents the communication between activities in separate pools

Connectors

Flow Objects

Connecting Objects

Lanes & Pools

Artifacts

Data Objects are not flow objects (i.e.,

connected through Sequence Flow), but they

do provide information about how

documents, data, and other objects are used

and updated within a Process.

Text Annotations are effectively notes that

can be added to a diagram to provide

additional information for the reader

Groups provide a mechanism to visually

organise activities, in addition to swimlanes

Data Objects

BPMN 2.0 can represent Data in two ways: Data Storesand Data Objects.

A Data Store provides a mechanism for Activities to retrieve or update stored information that will persist beyond the scope of the Process. The same Data Store can be visualized, through a Data Store Reference, in one or more places in the Process.

Data Objects provide information about what Activities require to be performed and/or what they produce, Data Objects can represent a singular object or a collection of objects.

Data Objects can be separated in Data Input and Data Output only considering direction of the information.

Artifacts

BPMN 2.0 considers 2 types of artifacts: Groups andText Annotations.

A Group is a grouping of graphical elements thatare within the same Category. This type of grouping does not affect the Sequence Flows within the Group. The Category name appears on the diagram as the group label. Categories can be used for documentation or analysis purposes. Groups are one way in which Categories of objects can be visually displayed on the diagram.

Text Annotations are a mechanism for a modeler toprovide additional text information for the reader ofa BPMN Diagram.

Flow Objects

Connecting Objects

Artifacts

SwimLane 1

SwimLane 2

Po

ol

Milestone 1

Pools and Swimlanes

• A Pool is a graphical

container for partitioning a

set of activities from other

pools.

• A Lane is a sub-

partition within a Pool

• They can be used to

represent, for example,

roles, departments,

locations or different

organisations

Swimlanes

Pool or Laneset is an element representing a process intoan organization or company.

Lane is a representation of anarea or department of the company. Some times can represent a role into a processscope.

Participant or Empty Pool is a representation of a process orentity that does not have anyaction within the process.

• A pool is a container for activities carried out by a particular participant in a process

• Typically, a participant is• a role for a human activity

• a service (or a process) for an automated activity

Pool

• It has at least one activity!

Simplest useful process

• Process fragment is a compound activity

• Also called “sub-process”

Process fragments

• Repeating conditions may be different in different systems

Repeatable process fragments (1)

• Be explicit within fragments; the exclusive gateway G01 which is used to specify two branches – one to continue the loop and one to exit it

Repeatable process fragments (2)

The full set of elements

Example

Process Diagram Sample

Collaboration

Into collaboration diagrams there’s a main concept to consider: “A PARTICIPANT”.BPMN considers a participant an entity or process involved into a collaborative relation .

Participants

BPMN Best Practices

Sequence

Parallel Split

Synchronization

Exclusive Choice

Simple Merge

Multi-Choice

Structured Synchronizing Merge

Multi Merge

Structured Discriminator

Structured Partial Join

General Synchronizing Merge

General Synchronizing Merge

Multiple Instances with a Priori Run-Time Knowledge

Multiple Instances without a Priori Design-Time Knowledge

Static Partial Join for Multiple Instances

Some Hints


Real Examples


What to do?! I want to

improve my work

process…

Model Simple

??

?

think BIG

start SMALL

and EVOLVE

The Recipe for Success

69

72

Every Activity should be borne by a Representative!

Real Examples

Some Hints



Real Examples

Some Hints



Conclusion • BPMN is an easy to use, well established method

for process discovery and documentation

• Provides the capability to capture and document your processes within days (with the right tool/s)

• Remember !!!

Carrying out process discovery and documentation is only the start of the journey for improvement and change

Useful References

Object Management Group/Business Process Management Initiativewww.bpmn.org

Documents Associated with Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) Version 2.0http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/2.0/

http://www.bpmn.org/

http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/2.0/