Business Process Management (BPM)

Lecture 2: Introduction to BPMN

 How to engage in BPM?

1. Process identification Process

Modeling
2. Process discovery (as-is) Tools
3. Process analysis
4. Process redesign (to-be)
5. Process implementation Process
6. Process monitoring/controlling Management
Systems

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 Purposes of Process Modeling
Organizational
Analysis

“AS IS”
Process
Models
Communication,
simulation,
activity-based
Process “TO BE” costing…
Analysis & Design Process Models
Improvement
Measures for

Target Values

Process Process Detailed Models

Evaluation Implementation including
Data types, conditions,
Process Models data mappings, fault
Executable

handling…
Integration, testing,
Process
Process deployment…
Metrics Enactment &
Monitoring
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 Business Process Modeling Notation
(BPMN)
• OMG (Object Management Group®)Standard,
supported by many tools:
– Bizagi Process Modeller
– Signavio (http://www.signavio.com/)
– TIBCO Business Studio (free download, quite large)
– IBM Websphere Business Modeler
– ARIS
– Oracle BPA
– Business Process Visual Architect (Visual Paradigm)
– Progress Savvion Business Modeller

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 BPMN from 10 000 miles…

• A BPMN process model is a graph consisting of

four types of elements (among others):

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Order Management Process in BPMN
First Try

Reject order

Check stock
Send invoice
availability

Confirm order

Ship goods

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 A little bit more on Gateways …
• Exclusive Decision / Merge
– Indicates locations within a business process where the
sequence flow can take two or more alternative paths.
– Only one of the paths can be taken.
– Depicted by a diamond shape that may contain a marker
that is shaped like an “X”.
• Parallel Fork / Join
– Provide a mechanism to synchronize parallel flow and to
create parallel flow.
– Depicted by a diamond shape that must contain a
marker that is shaped like a plus sign.

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Revised Order Management Process

Reject order

Check stock
Send invoice
availability

Confirm order

Ship goods

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 BPMN Exercise:
Simplified Insurance Claim Registration

When a claim is received, it is first checked whether the claimant

has a valid insurance policy. If not, the claimant is informed that the
claim is rejected due to an invalid policy.
Otherwise, the severity of the claim is evaluated. Based on the
outcome (simple or complex claims), relevant forms are sent to the
claimant. Once the forms are returned, they are checked for
completeness.
If the forms are complete, the claim is registered in the Claims
Management system and the evaluation of the claim may start.
Otherwise, the claimant is asked to update the forms. Upon
reception of the updated forms, they are checked again.

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10
 Process Modelling Viewpoints
Organization
Who?

What?
Function When?
Process

Which?

Data / Service / Product

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 Organisational Elements in Process
Models
Two basic abstractions:
• Resource: Human actor or equipment (e.g. printer) that is
required to perform an activity
• Resource class: Set of resources with shared
characteristics, e.g. Clerk, Manager, Insurance Officer
A resource class may be a:
• Role (skill, competence, qualification)
Classification based on what a resource can do or is
expected to do.
• Group (department, team, office, organizational unit)
Classification based on the organization’s structure.
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 Resource Modelling in BPMN

• In BPMN, resource classes are captured using:

– Pools – independent organizational entities, e.g.

• Customer, Supplier, East-Tallinn Hospital, Tartu Clinic
– Lanes – resource classes in the same organizational
space and sharing common systems
• Sales Department, Marketing Department
• Clerk, Manager, Engineer

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Lanes and Pools – Notation

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 Order Management Process with Pools
Customer

Place
Make
purchase
payment
order

Invoice

Order Rejection Notification Shipment notification

Purchase Order confirmation

order notification Send invoice

Confirm order
Supplier

Check stock
Ship goods
availability

Reject order

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Order Management Process with Lanes

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 Fragment of Equipment Rental Process
• The process starts when a site engineer fills in an equipment rental
request
• The clerk at the depot receives the request and, after consulting the
catalogues of the equipment suppliers, selects the most cost-effective
equipment that complies with the request.
• Next, the clerk checks the availability of the selected equipment with the
supplier via phone or e-mail. Sometimes the selected option is not
available and the clerk has to select an alternative piece of equipment
and check its availability with the corresponding supplier.
• Once the clerk has found a suitable piece of equipment available for
rental, they add the details of the selected equipment to the rental
request.
• The request is then passed on to the works engineer for approval. If the
works engineer approves it, the clerk sends a purchase order to the
supplier. If the works engineer rejects the request, the process ends.

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1
Solution

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1
 Service tasks
A service task represents a work item in
the process with a specific type

When a service task is entered, a corresponding job is

created. The process instance stops here and waits
until the job is complete.

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 User task
A user task is used to model work that needs to be done by a human
actor. When the process instance arrives at such a user task, a new user
task instance is created. The process instance stops at this point and
waits until the user task instance is completed. When the user task
instance is completed, the process instance continues.

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 Receive tasks
Receive tasks reference a message; these are
used to wait until a proper message is received.

When a receive task is entered, a corresponding

message subscription is created. The process instance
stops at this point and waits until the message is
correlated.

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 Business rule tasks

A business rule task is used to model the evaluation of a

business rule;

When the process instance arrives at a business rule task, a decision is

evaluated using the internal DMN decision engine. Once the decision is
made, the process instance continues.
If the decision evaluation is unsuccessful, an incident is raised at the
business rule task. When the incident is resolved, the decision is
evaluated again.

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 Send Task

A send task is used to model the publication of a message to an

external system; for example, a mail server.

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 Exclusive gateway

An exclusive gateway (or XOR-gateway) allows you to make a decision

based on data (i.e. on process instance variables).

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 Parallel gateway

A parallel gateway (or AND-gateway) allows you to split the flow into
concurrent paths.

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 Event-based gateway
An event-based gateway allows you to make a decision based on events

An event-based gateway must have at least two outgoing sequence

flows. Each sequence flow must be connected to an intermediate catch
event of type timer, message or signal.

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 Inclusive gateway
The inclusive gateway (or OR-gateway) allows for making multiple
decisions based on data (i.e. on process instance variables).

If an inclusive gateway has multiple outgoing sequence flows, all sequence

flows must have a condition to define when the flow is taken. If the inclusive
gateway only has one outgoing sequence flow, then it does not need to have a
condition.

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28
29
If no condition is fulfilled, it takes the default flow of the gateway. Note that the
default flow is not expected to have a condition, and is therefore not
evaluated. If no condition is fulfilled and the gateway has no default flow, an
incident is created.

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 Exercise

After the Expense Report is received, a new account must be created if the
employee does not already have one. The report is then reviewed for
automatic approval. Amounts under $200 are automatically approved,
whereas amounts equal to or over $200 require approval of the Supervisor.
In case of rejection, the employee must receive a rejection notice by email.
The reimbursement goes to the employee’s direct deposit bank account. If
the request is not completed in 7 days, then the employee must receive an
“approval in progress” email.
If the request is not finished within 30 days, then the process is stopped and
the employee receives an email cancellation notice and must re‐submit the
expense report.

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Expense
Report

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 Exercise

Every weekday morning, the database is backed up and then it is checked to see
whether the “Account Defaulter” table has new records. If no new records are
found, then the process should check the CRM system to see whether new
returns have been filed. If new returns exist, then register all defaulting accounts
and customers. If the defaulting client codes have not been previously advised,
produce another table of defaulting accounts and send to account management.
All of this must be completed by 2:30 pm, if it is not, then an alert should be sent
to the supervisor. Once the new defaulting account report has been
completed, check the CRM system to see whether new returns have been filed. If
new returns have been filed, reconcile with the existing account defaulter's table.
This must be completed by 4:00 pm otherwise a supervisor should be sent a
message.

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34
BPMN Exercise:
• Claims Handling process at a car insurer
A customer submits a claim by sending in relevant
documentation. The Customer Service department
checks the documents for completeness and registers
the claim. The Claims Handling department picks up
the claim and first checks the insurance policy. Then,
an assessment is performed. If the assessment is
positive, a garage is phoned to authorise the repairs
and the payment is scheduled (in this order). In any
case (whether the outcome is positive or negative), an
e-mail is sent to the customer to notify the outcome.

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 BPMN Information Artifacts

• Data Objects are a mechanism to show how

Data
Object
data is required or produced by activities.
– Are depicted by a rectangle that has its upper-right
corner folded over.
– Represent input and output of a process activity.
• Data stores are containers of data
Data objects that need be persisted beyond
Store the duration of a process instance

Directed association
• Associations are used to link artifacts
such as data objects and data stores
Undirected association with flow objects (e.g. activities).

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Order Processing Model with Artifacts

Send invoice
Purchase
Order
Confirm order

Check stock Set PO to approved

Ship goods
availability
Set PO to rejected

Reject order

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 BPMN Exercise 3: Artifacts

When a claim related to a major car accident is evaluated, a clerk

first retrieves the corresponding car accident report in the Police
Reports database. If the report is retrieved, it is attached to the
claim file. The claim file and the police report serve as input to a
claims handler who calculates an initial claim estimate. Then, an
“action plan” is created based on a “checklist”. Based on the action
plan and the initial claims estimate, a claims manager negotiates a
settlement with the customer. After this negotiation, the claims
manager makes a final decision, updates the claim file to record this
decision, and sends a letter to the claimant to inform him/her of the
decision.

Please depict all relevant documents in the model.

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 BPMN Main Elements - Recap

Connections Swimlanes

Pool
Message Association

Lane
Flow

Flow Objects Artifacts

Text Annotation
Activity

Gateway

Event
Data
Object
Data
Store

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 BMPN Gateway
• Gateways determine what path is taken through a process that
controls the flow of both diverging and converging Sequence Flows.
That is, a single Gateway could have multiple inputs and multiple
output flows.
• The term “gateway” implies that there is a gating mechanism that
either allows or disallows passage through the Gateway–that is, as
tokens arrive at a Gateway, they can be merged on input and/or
split apart on output as the Gateway mechanisms are invoked.
• If the flow does not need to be controlled, then a Gateway is not
needed.
• Gateways, like Activities, are capable of consuming or generating
additional control tokens, effectively controlling the execution
semantics of a given Process.
• The main difference is that Gateways do not represent ‘work’ being
done and they are considered to have zero effect on the operational
measures of the Process being executed (cost, time, etc.).
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BPMN Gateway types

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 Exclusive Gateway

• A diverging Exclusive Gateway (or XOR

Gateway) is used to create alternative paths
within a Process flow. For a given instance
of the Process, only one of the paths can be
taken.
• When the execution of a workflow arrives at
this gateway, all outgoing sequence flows
are evaluated in the order in which they are
defined. The sequence flow whose condition
evaluates to true is selected for propagating
the token flow.

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 Exclusive Gateway

• In general, in BPMN 2.0, all sequence flows whose conditions

evaluate to true are selected to continue in a parallel way. When
using an exclusive gateway, only one sequence flow is
selected.
• When multiple sequence flows have conditions that evaluate to
true, only the first one defined is selected to continue the
process.
• If no sequence flow can be selected, an exception will be thrown.
To ensure a sequence flow will always be selected, have no
condition on one of your flows.

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 Exclusive Gateway

• The following diagram shows an

exclusive gateway that will
choose one sequence flow
based on the value of a property,
in this example, the invoice
amount. Only two flows have
conditions on them going to CFO
Approval and Finance Director
Approval. The last sequence flow
has no condition and will be
selected by default if the other
conditional flows evaluate to
false.

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 Event-Based Gateway

• The event-based gateway

also can be used to
instantiate a process. When
this is the case the Event-
Based Exclusive Gateway
icon has only a single circle
within the diamond.
• When used to start a
process, the Event-Based
Exclusive Gateway allows the
process to start in several
ways based on the event that
triggers it.

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 Parallel Gateway

• Parallel gateways are used to

represent two tasks in a business
flow. A parallel gateway is used to
visualize the concurrent execution
of activities.
• A parallel gateway models a fork
into multiple paths of execution, or
a join of multiple incoming paths of
execution

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 Parallel Gateway
• Fork – all outgoing sequence flows are followed in parallel, creating
one concurrent execution for each sequence flow.
• Join – all concurrent executions arriving at the parallel gateway wait
at the gateway until execution has completed for each of the
incoming sequence flows. The process then continues.

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 Inclusive Gateway

• An inclusive (OR)
Gateway specifies that
one or more of the
available paths will be
taken.
• They could all be taken,
or only one of them

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Inclusive Gateway

The first OR gateway represents the

control of the flow of the process along
one or more paths in the model.

• If the car needs to be cleaned, it will

be cleaned.
• Also, if it needs to be repaired, it will
be repaired.
• If the car needs to be both cleaned
and repaired, both things happen.
• The possibility that neither cleaning
nor repairs are required.

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Inclusive Gateway

The second OR gateway represents

the reconnection of those paths and
the continuation of flow.
• When reconnecting paths like this,
the OR gateway explicitly requires
that all paths that were activated
must be completed before
continuing in the process.
• By explanation, if the car needed
only to be cleaned, then the car
may be driven once the cleaning is
done.
• If the car needed to be both
cleaned and repaired, the car could
not be driven until both the cleaning
and repairs were completed.

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 Exclusive Event-based Gateway

• An exclusive event-based gateway is

used to branch a process when
alternative paths are determined by
events (various messages or signals)
rather than by conditional flows.
• This can happen when the decision
about one of the alternative paths is
taken by someone out of the process.

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 Example

A signing contract process expects a signal

regarding a client’s decision during the negotiation
process. Further development of the process
depends on this decision.

An exclusive event-based gateway, the decision is made based on whichever

the associated intermediate event occurs first. 52
 Complex Decision Gateway

• A complex decision gateway

allows for a more expressive
decision within a business
process. Multiple factors,
rules, and analyses can all
combine to yield results. The
analysis should result in at
least one path always being
taken.

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 Complex Gateway Example

• A student takes an SAT examination. If the student scores under an 800 (the
possible scores range from 200 to 1600), the student will enroll in an
expensive class to improve his test score – and then retake the exam. If the
student performs moderately, he will read a low-cost book designed to help
him improve his score – and then retake the exam. If the student scores
above 1000, he will immediately attend university

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 Parallel Event-Based Gateway

• A Parallel Event-Based gateway is similar to

a parallel gateway. It allows for more than
one process to happen at the same time.
• It is important to note that while the Event-
Based Parallel Gateway will allow multiple
events to pass through and start the
corresponding portion of the process, it does
not wait for all of the events to arrive.
• That is, it does not wait and synchronize the
events before the start of each processing
path is permitted.

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 Parallel Event-based Gateway Example

• Event Gateways can be used to instantiate a Process. By default the

Gateway’s instantiate attribute is false, but if set to true, then the Process is
instantiated when the first Event of the Gateway’s configuration is triggered.
In this example, if your Bank Manager Approval event is triggered then the
Increase Overdraft process will be executed.

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What’s wrong with this model?

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 BPMN Gateways

Exclusive (XOR) Parallel (AND) Inclusive (OR)

• Exclusive • Parallel split • Inclusive
decision take all decision take
take one branch branches one or several
• Exclusive • Parallel join branches
merge proceed when depending on
Proceed when all incoming conditions
one branch has branches have • Inclusive merge
completed completed proceed when
all active
incoming
branches have
completed

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Example: OR gateways

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How can we fix this model?

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 Exercise

Model the following fragment using OR gateways:

When a claim is received, it is registered. After
registration, the claim is classified leading to two
possible outcomes: simple or complex. If the claim is
simple, the policy is checked. For complex claims, both
the policy and the damage are checked independently.

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 Summary

BPMN depicts these four element types for

business process diagrams:
• Flow objects: events, activities, gateways.
• Connecting objects: sequence flow,
message flow, association.
• Swimlanes: pool or lane.
• Artifacts: data object, group, annotation.

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Anything wrong with this model?

63
Is this better?

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Expanded…

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 Sub-processes

• An activity in a process can “invoke” a separate

(sub-)process
• Use this feature to:
1. Break down large models into smaller ones, making
them easier to understand and maintain
 process hierarchies
2. Share common fragments across multiple processes
 shared subprocesses
3. Identify parts of a process that should be:
• repeated
• executed multiple times in parallel
• cancelled

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 Process hierarchies

Process Receive and

Level 3 Inquity and Validate ...
Quote Order

Receive
Order
Level 4 Enter Order Check Credit ...

Credit
Available? Clear Order
Access Credit
Level 5 Record
Contact
customer
account rep. ...
Fragment of
the SCOR 67
model
 Modeling Guideline
Start with a value chain
• Good practice is that the top-level process
should be simple (no gateways) and should
show the main phases of the process
– Each phase then becomes a sub-process
– This is sometimes called a “value chain”

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 Showing the value chain with sub-
processes
Purchase Purchase Goods Invoice
Approval
Request Order Receipt Verification

Consider re-
submission

Purchase Request process

rejected

Check purchase
request for 1st
approval

approved rejected
Purchase Request

Check purchase
request for 2nd
approval

approved

Send approved
request to requestor

Purchase Order process

Make copy of Forward to purchase

purchase request department

Approved Purchase Request

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Shared sub-process

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Sub-processes and loop marker

equivalent to:

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 Exercise

After a claim is registered, it is examined by a

claims officer. The claims officer then writes a
“settlement recommendation”. This
recommendation is checked by a senior claims
officer who may mark the claim as “OK” or “Not
OK”. If the claim is marked as “Not OK”, it is sent
back to the claims officer and the examination is
repeated. If the claim is marked as “OK”, the
claims officer notifies the settlement to the
customer.

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