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
Real Examples
Bizagi as a Process Modeling Tool

What is BPMN
Business Process Modeling Notation
Graphical notation for drawing business
processes
An industry standard developed by the OMG
consortium, a not-for-profit industry group
Provides 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 stakeholders
To 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 accepted
Replaces numerous process modeling
languages, notations and methods
Simple 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
Flow Objects
Event Activity Gateway
SequenceFlow
MessageFlow
Association
Connecting Objects
Data Objects & Artifacts Swimlanes
DataObject
DataStore
Group
Pool
Lane

Connecting
Objects
Lanes &
Pools
Artifacts

Connecting
Objects
‫اشياي‬
‫‌دهنده‬‫ط‬‫ارتبا‬
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 course
of a Process or a Choreography. An Event affects the
flow of the model and usually have a cause (Trigger) or
an impact (Result).
Event graphical representation is a circle.
There’s 3 types of events: Start Events, Intermediate
Events and End Event.
Intermediate Events can be used in regular process
diagrams and can be used as Boundary Events attached
to an activity.
Start Events and Intermediate Events can be Interrupting and
Non-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 that
company performs in a Process. An Activity
Can 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 Objects
There’s 6 types or connection objects. All
of them are represented for a line.
Sequence Flow can be Normal, Default
and Conditional, and always have direction,
source and target.
Message Flows are a type of connection object
that is used to represent collaboration between
two process.
Data Association is a line between a Data Object and
An element.
Normal
Default
Conditional
Message
Data 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 Stores
and 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 and
Text Annotations.
A Group is a grouping of graphical elements that
are 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 to
provide additional text information for the reader of
a BPMN Diagram.

Flow
Objects
Connecting
Objects
Artifacts
SwimLane 1
SwimLane 2
Pool
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 into
an organization or company.
Lane is a representation of an
area or department of the
company. Some times can
represent a role into a process
scope.
Participant or Empty Pool is a
representation of a process or
entity that does not have any
action 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)

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

Structured Synchronizing Merge

Multiple Instances with a Priori Run-Time Knowledge

Multiple Instances without a Priori Design-Time Knowledge

Static Partial Join for Multiple Instances

What to do?!
I want to
improve my
work
process…

think BIG
start SMALL
and EVOLVE
The Recipe for Success
69

Every Activity should be borne by a Representative!

Real Examples
Some Hints
Bizagi as a Process Modeling Tool

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

BPMN and Bizagi

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