Business Process Modeling Notation Process Diagram - Overview

BPMN process diagrams are a means of modeling business processes of an organization. The BPMN notation is suitable especially in cases, where process diagrams on a conceptional level created during business analysis are to be used as starting point for process automation later on.

Using Pools and Swim Lanes the responsibility of certain process participants for certain parts of the process can be shown. Process participants can be business functions, organisational units or applications.
According to the BPMN standard it is not allowed to have control flow between pools while message flow is allowed. Between the different swim lanes within the same pool control flow is allowed, though.

Activitiesrepresent the steps in a process chain and are available as Tasks, Transactions, Event Sub Processes and Call Activities.

Activities can be specialized by Task Types and Markings.
That way, the character of an Activity can be specified more precisely e.g. with the help of the Service Task Type. Thereby an Activity can only be assigned to exactly one Task Type. In the same way the Sub Process-Marking is used to turn a Task, which is considered elementary, into a Sub Process, which implies a further refinement. Unlike Task Types, Activities can have more than one Marking.

Events represent certain incidents or states within a process. Each process in BPMN starts with a start event (right side) and ends with an end event (right side). All other events within in process are represented by an intermediate event (middle).

Events can be specialized by Event Types. E.g. if an error event within an activity occours, the course of the control flow can be changed (left side) or a message can be triggered as event in the during of the control flow (right side).

The Message Event is a throwing and catching event and represents the sending and receiving of messages.

The Time Event is a solely catching event and represents a certain point in time, a time spane or a periodically occurring event.

The Condition Event is a solely catching event and reacts to changed condition.

The Link Event consists of a throwing Link Event and a catching Link Event. It's purpose is to link two parts of a control flow together, that locally belong to eachother. The event is often used in big model, that are spread over several pages.

The Signal Event is a throwing and catching event, which other processes can react to once or multiple times.

The Errorr Event is a throwing and catching event for dealing with errors.

The Escalation Event is a throwing and catching event, which is used to inform the responsible process in the level above.

The Termination Event is a solely throwing end event, which causes the immediate abortion of the process.

The Compensation Event is a throwing and catching event, which is used to, start and handle compensations.

The Abort Event is a throwing and catching event, which is used to cause and react to abortions in transactions.

The Multi Event is a throwing and catching event. In the case of a throwing Multi Event, all events belonging to the Multi Event will be triggered. The catching Multi Event only needs one belonging event to catch an event.

The Multi/Parallel Event is a solely catching Event that needs all belonging events to catch an event.

Using Data Objects pieces of information can be shown which are consumed (read/processed) or produced during the execution of a process step.

Messages are used to show the communication between two parties and to clarify the contents of it.

Gateways allow the forking and joining of the control flow. This can be done e.g. by condition, that are noted down at the paths, or by events.

The Exclusive Gateway forks the control flow in a process run to exactly one path on the basis of conditions. When joining several paths, it waits for one of these paths before continuing.

The Exclusive Gateway without symbol has the same functionality as the Exclusive Gateway with symbol.

The Parallel Gateway forks the control flow to all paths at the same time. When joining several paths, it waits for all of these paths before continuing.

The Inclusive Gateway forks the control flow in a process run to one or more paths on the basis of conditions. When joining several paths, it waits for all active paths before continuing.

The Complex Gateway forks and joins the control flow in a way, which has to be specified.

The Event based Gateway is always directly followed by catching events. The control flow is forked to the path, whose event is caught first.

The Exclsuive Event based Gateway is a special gateway which starts the process, once one of the it directly following catching events is caught.

The Parallel Event based-Gateway is a special gateway, which starts the process, once all of the it directly foloowing catching events are caught.