Business process modelling

Lesson 3: Essential Process Modelling

 Reasons for modelling a process:

o Understand the process.

o Identify and prevent issues.

o Share our understanding of the process to others.

For modelling class Demo we will be using Camunda BPMN Tool

https://camunda.com/download/modeler/

Flow Objects in BPMN

Events

In BPMN, events are the things that take place throughout the business process.
They are always represented by circles and can include icons within those circles to
describe the event with more detail. Your diagrams should also always include a
start and end event symbol.

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In addition to icons that get more specific about what event is taking place, the
circles they’re dropped inside tell you more about when the event is taking place. A
thin-lined circle indicates a “start event,” a double-lined circle indicates an
“intermediate event,” and a thick-lined circle indicates an “end event.”

So, if the start of your process is triggered by an error, you’d want to use a thin-lined
circle with the lightning bolt error symbol inside. If an error is occurring in the
middle of your process, you’d use a double-lined circle with the error symbol inside.

Activities

Work takes place between the events in your diagram. That work is described with
stylized rectangles to show basic tasks, sub-processes, transactions, and call activity
(sometimes referred to as callable process or global task) symbols.

Gateways

Gateway symbols are diamond-shaped indicators that split or combine your process
flow.

This symbol indicates that the process will be evaluated. If it

meets certain criteria or conditions, it will move forward
through the process flow. If it does not, it will stop or move into
a different process. It’s like a decision step in a flowchart.

Exclusive gateway

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 Like an exclusive gateway, this step evaluates whether a specific
condition is met or not met. The process will only move forward
if and when that condition is met.

Event-based
gateway

The parallel gateway doesn’t depend on other conditions being

met or events taking place — it simply shows that there are two
tasks taking place at the same time.

Parallel gateway

This gateway brakes the flow into multiple others. One or

several of these flows can proceed based upon the evaluation
that takes place in this gateway. For example, a customer may
place an order where all items are for store pickup, all items are
for shipping, or a combination of both. This gateway allows the
next steps for both shipping processes and store-pickup
processes to be taken.
Inclusive gateway

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 This gateway operates like the exclusive gateway, rather than
waiting for a certain condition to be met, it waits for an event to
occur.

Exclusive event-
based gateway

Like the parallel gateway, this symbol indicates that multiple

processes can happen at the same time. However, these
processes depend on specific events happening, rather than
conditions being met.

Parallel event-based
gateway

Complex gateways should be used sparingly — only when the

process you’re describing is really tangled. Along with this
gateway, you need to include a text description so that your
diagram users can understand all the detail behind it.

Complex gateway

Artifacts

Data Objects

These icons show how data is referenced by, included in, or created by the process
you’re describing. It’s important to include data object artifacts when describing

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your process so that you can understand how other functions within an organization
are used by or dependent upon the process you’re describing.

Group

With a dash-dot container, you can organize multiple tasks or processes into a
group. This doesn’t change the function of the tasks or processes, but it can help you
be more specific about how each of those steps is completed.

Annotation

Annotations are curvy brackets that allow the diagrammer to add additional context
to parts of the process. While your diagram should be skimmable and quickly
understood, annotations can get into the nitty-gritty so that users who need more
information have it all at their fingertips.

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Connectors in BPMN

Sequence Flow

Sequence flow arrows show the flow of your BPMN diagram. These are the most
basic descriptions of the movement throughout your process and connect to any of
the flow objects in your diagram. Sequence flow connectors are simple, solid arrows.

Message Flow

Unlike a sequence diagram that shows how the process moves, message flow arrows
simply indicate how information is shared throughout the process. These are
represented by a dashed arrow with an unfilled arrowhead.

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Association

Association arrows connect artifacts to flow objects so that your diagram users can
understand where the additional description or data applies to the process.
Associations are shown with dotted lines — no arrowhead included.

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Using Swimlanes for BPMN Diagrams

Last, your flow objects, artifacts, and connectors lie on top of a swimlane framework.
You may be familiar with swimlane diagrams, which are a type of flowchart that use
columns or rows to organize a process. These rows, called swimlanes or pools, are a
core part of the structure of BPMN diagrams, too.

🎬 Watch our tutorial video for tips on Gliffy's swimlane functionality: How to
Make a Swimlane Diagram

Pools

Pools are a type of division that defines a process or organization. These tend to be
broad functions, like “marketing” or “IT” or even between two different companies
or entities altogether. If you were making a model of how a restaurant serves a
customer, the restaurant and the customer would be their own pools.

Lanes

Lanes are a division that fit within pools to give a more specific definition of who
ultimately performs a certain activity. Using the example of the process of eating at a
restaurant from above, the customer would be their own pool and the restaurant
would be its own pool. However, you could further break down the restaurant pool
into lanes like “server” and “kitchen” to be more specific about who within the
restaurant is carrying out specific tasks.

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What is the Difference Between a Pool and Lane in BPMN?

It’s normal for people to misuse “lane” when they mean “pool” and vise versa. The
key difference between a pool and a lane is that pools should be used as the biggest
container for your process, while lanes should be specific and detailed within a
pool.

Almost all of the details of your diagram should fit within one pool and that pool
can have as many lanes as necessary to clearly depict your process.

What is a Black Box Pool?

A black box pool is a pool within a diagram that doesn’t include any details. It’s not
best practice for BPMN diagrams to have multiple detailed pools — it could be a
sign that the scope or audience for your diagram is too broad. Further, it’s common
for the additional pools in your diagram to be external entities, where you don’t
know or control their process.

To create a black box pool, you’d simply use a labeled rectangle. No information
would show up within that rectangle, but arrows would flow to and from the black
box.

Consider the example of the restaurant process. If you’re the restaurant manager,
you likely have some idea of what the customer will do at your restaurant, like
making a reservation or opening a bar tab, but you don’t have control over the way

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in which they go about doing those things. You could map out their process (starting
with placing an order and ending with finishing their meal, for example), but this
would simply clutter your diagram. What you care about and what you control are
purely the events taking place within the restaurant.

3.1 First Steps with BPMN

BPMN Tutorial - Part 01: Simple BPMN Process in 3 min

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odhFiGcqwtw

 Events = Things that happen instantaneously.

o Start event = When an instance of the process start

 Represented by: circle with a thin border.

 ex. Purchase order received.

o End Event = When an instance of the process is complete.

 Represented by: circle with thick border.

 ex. Order fulfilled.

 Activities = Units of work that have a duration.

o Represented by: Rectangles with rounded of corners.

o ex. Confirm order / Emit invoice etc.

 Relation = Sequence: Activity A is followed by activity B.

o Represented by: Arrow with a full arrow head.

o ex. The arrow between Confirm Order and Get Shipment Address.

 Token = Identify the progress/state of a process instance.

o Represented by: Colored dot on top of a process model.

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 o ex. Red dot above the Ship Product activity

o ex. Black dot inside the start event.

o ex. Green dot between (is starting with the next activity) Receive
Payment and Archive Order.

 Label = A name for an event or activity

o Use for:

 Start event: communicate what triggers/starts an instance of the

process.

 End event: communicate the outcome of the process.

 Activity: Name what the activity does

 Syntax:
{VERB}+{ADJECTIVE}+{NOUN}+{COMPLEMENT}

 Adjective and the complement can be used, but is

not needed.

 Long labels will decrease readability of the model.

 Thumb rule: max 5 words (excluding the "glue"

words (the, a, and, via etc.))

 Use words consistently (so no synonyms)

 Use meaningful and not ambiguous

(dubbelzinnig) verbs ( to process > order
fulfillment)

 ex. {Approve}+{}+{Order}+{} = Approve Order

 ex. {Issue}+{Driver}+{License}+{} = Issue Driver License

 ex. {Renew}+{Driver}+{License}+{via offline agencies} =

Renew Driver License via offline agencies
Modeling Theory

 Model characteristics:

o Mapping: Create a model of the subject.

o Abstraction: Only use relevant aspects of the subject.

o Fit For Purpose: Creation of a blueprint to display the purpose of the
subject.

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  Target audience (for who are you making the model).

o ex. A buyer may want to see a wooden model, but an electrical

engineer cant use it to design an electrical system.

 Purpose for modeling:

o Organizational design:

 Business oriented, used mainly for understanding and

communication.

 Also benchmarking and improvement.

 For: Managers, Process owners and business analysts.

o Application system design:

 IT-oriented

 For: System Engineers and developers used for automation.

 Blueprints for software development.

3.2 Branching and Merging

 Activities may not be performed sequentially.

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Analysis of the figure Above

A process that combines split and draw gateways so when an order arrives
check the stock then you have a spit x or gate way. So you will test whether
there is sufficient stock if there is no sufficient stock you will reject the order if
there is sufficient stock you will accept the order after accept order you have a
split and its end split means that in parallel you will ship the goods and
sender invoice this is followed by an end join so it means you wait until the
good have been shipped and invoice has been sent and only when both T task
are finished you continue with handle payment the parallel doing tasks in
parallel doesn't mean necessary to do them exactly the same time it can be
that you do first ship goods and then send invoice or then send first send
invoice and then ship goods or that by accident you do them exactly at the
same time that's not important it means actually there is no order in which to
do these two tasks on the other hand and join means that you have to wait
until both task are finished before you can.

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  Mutually Exclusive = When two or more activities are alternative to each
other.

 Concurrent = When two or more activities can be executed simultaneously.

 Gateway = Gating mechanism that either allows or disallows passage of

tokens trough the gateway.

o Split = The process flow splits in 2 or more different process flows. (1

in, 2-* out)

o Join = Different process flows come together to exit the gateway as one
process flow. (2-* in, 1 out)

 Synchonization = Waiting for a number of tokens to arrive and then merging

them together.

 Deadlock = When a token cannot continue because the wrong gateways are
used.

BPMN Tutorial - Part 02: XOR Gateway in 4 min

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2Yf0BGs3mQ
Exclusive Decisions (XOR)

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  X marker in the gateway symbol (diamond shape).

 When only one of the branches needs to be executed.

 An XOR-split (decision) routs the token:

o From: The only incoming branch (ex. Check invoice for mismatches)

o To: One of the multiple outgoing branches.

o The line towards "Block invoice" has a line diagonal near the gateway.

 This indicates the default flow.

 Default only counts when the conditions of all the other

outgoing flows evaluate to false.

o Make sure all the outgoing branches have labels describing when to
take this flow.

 An XOR-join (merge) routs the token:

o From: One of the multiple incoming branches (ex. Post invoice, Block
invoice or resend invoice to customer)

o To: The only outgoing branch.

o Waits for the only token to arrive from one of the branches, before
continuing.
Parallel Execution (AND)

o marker in the gateway symbol (diamond shape)

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  When 2 or more activities do not depend on each other they can be executed
in parallel.

 An AND-split routs the token:

o From: The only incoming branch.

o To: All the outgoing branches.

 An AND-join routs the token

o From: All the incoming branches.

o To: The only outgoing branches.

o Waits for all the tokens to finish their branches, before continuing.
Inclusinve Decisions (OR)

 O marker in the gateway symbol (diamond shape)

 When one or more branches needs to be executed.

 Use only when strictly required. The OR-gateway causes confusion.

 An OR-split (decision) routs the token:

o From: The only incoming branch.

o To: One or more outgoing branches.

 An OR-join routs the token:

o From: One or more incoming branches.

o To: The only outgoing branch.

o Waits for all the active tokens to finish their branches, before
continuing
Rework and Repetition

 Repetition block = A sequence of activities that can be repeated based on the

result.

 Begins with a join and ends with a split.

 The spit will redirect to the previous join.

Components of a modeling language

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  Syntax = Set of modeling elements and a set of rules of how these elements
can be used.

 Semantics = Binding of the elements with precise meaning.

 Notation = Set of graphical symbols for visualization of the elements.

3.3 Information Artifacts

 Functional perspective = What activities should happen in the process.

o Control-flow perspective = When activities and events should occur.

o Data perspective = Which information artifacts (documents/files) are

required to perform an activity or are produced as result of performing
an activity.

 Data objects = Represents information flowing in and out of activities.

o Can be: Physical and digital artifacts such as: invoice, paper letter,
email, file.

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 o Displayed as: A document with the upper-right corner folded over.

 ex. Invoice under Emit invoice.

o Allows to model the information flow between process activities.

o To avoid cluttering the model, a data object may be repeated multiple

times.

o When a data object (1 or more) is an input the activity will proceed

when all the data objects becomes available.

o Short notation for a data object being passed on to another activity, is

by connecting it to the sequence flow line.

 ex. Shipment address between Get shipment address and Ship

product.

o State of a data object

 Note the state behind the name of the data object between [].

 ex. Purchase order [confirmed] under Receive payment.

 Data association = Displays the association between a activity and a data

object.

o Can be: An input (arrowhead to activity) or an output (arrowhead to

data object).

o Displayed as: Dotted line with an open arrowhead.

o ex. output from activity: Invoice under emit Invoice.

o ex. input to activity: Purchase order under Confirm Order.

 Data store = Contains data objects that need to be kept beyond the duration of
a process instance.

o Can be: A electronic database, filing cabinet.

o Displayed as: Empty cylinder with triple upper border.

o Connected via data association.

o ex. Warehouse DB under Check stock availability.

 Text annotations = Adds additional information to the object/acivity they are

connected to.
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 o Displayed as: [ in which the text is written connected with an dotted
line to the object/activity.

o Provides extra information to make the model more clear.

o Do not affect the flow of tokens trough the process model.

o ex. Also includes packaging above Ship product.

3.4 Resources

 Resource = Anyone or anything involved in the performance of a process

activity.

o Can be:

 Process participant : Individual person such as an employee.

 Software system: Server or software application.

 Equipment: Printer or manufacturing plant.

o Distinguishing between:

 Active resources (participant): Resources that can autonomously

perform an activity.

 Passive resources (equipment): Resources that are merely

involved in the performance of an activity.

 Resource Classes = A group of resources (people) that are interchangeable in

the sense that any member of the group can perform a given activity.

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 Pools = Used to model resource classes.

o Used to model an whole organization.

o Each different business can be represented by a pool.

o Sequence flows cannot cross the boundary of a pool.

 Lane = An partition of an pool, which stands for an sub-class or single

resource.

o Used to model an department, unit, team, software system or

equipment within that organization.

o Lanes can be nested inside each other in multiple levels.

o Important to place an activity/event within the right lane and pool.

o Placing of a data object is not important, they depend on the activities

they are linked to.

o Gateways need to be placed in the same lane as the preceding decision

activity.

 Message flow = Represents the flow between two separate pools (resource
classes)

o Displayed as: Dotted line starting with an empty circle and ending
with an empty arrowhead. Also has the label indicating the content of
the message.

 Collaboration diagram = A diagram with two or more pools.

 White box pool = It shows all the activities, events, gateways and data objects.

 Black box pool = It hides how the process is performed.

o An organization may decide to not expose internal behavior because of

competition.

 Send Activity = An activity that is the source of a message

 Receive Activity = An activity that receives a message. And starts when this
message is available.

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Revision Practical modelling based on corporate case-study
INFOMBPM - Guidance exercise 3.21
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTWsQdumLWY&list=PLbn9FICCNIGjMEZ
ZD7nMrTkuZFOjsBCj6

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