Objects in a BPM

Chapter 3 Business Process Model Basics

Objects in a BPM

Objects belong to models and their symbols are displayed in diagrams.

You can create any object from the Browser, it is not dependent on the active diagram, but if you create objects using the tool palette, the objects available are specific to the active diagram.

The BPM includes the following objects:

Business process diagram

Object	Tool	Description
Package		Used to organize elements into groups. Not available for sub-process diagrams as you cannot create packages within sub-process diagrams
Organization unit		Element that hosts or implements processes and resources. It can be a company, a system, a service, an organization, a user or a role. It can also represent business partners for processes
Message format	—	Definition of data exchanged between processes
Process		Task to perform
Composite process	—	Complex process decomposed to be further detailed
Start		Starting point of the processes described in the process diagram
End		Termination point of the processes described in the process diagram
Decision		Decision to take when several flow paths are possible. Only one path will be triggered at execution time
Synchronization		Enables synchronization of flows between two or more concurrent actions or allows the design of a split
Flow		Transition between processes, starts, ends, decisions or synchronizations
Resource		Storage unit of abstract data circulating within the model, which is accessed by a process to perform actions
Resource flow		Access of a process to a resource
Data	—	Defines the type of information exchanged between business processes
Role association		Unidirectional relationship that designs a link between objects
Message part	—	Portion of the WSDL (Web Services Description Language) message
Top-level process	—	Global service that does not belong to a graph but describes its behavior in a sub-graph
Service provider	—	Object that gathers a set of service interfaces, for which it represents a namespace
Service interface	—	Object that gathers a set of operations, for which it represents a namespace
Operation	—	Implementation for an atomic process (activity)
Data transformation		Used to copy data from one variable to another
Variable	—	Data container local to a process
Correlation key	—	Ordered list of variables
Event	—	Manages interruptions in the normal execution of the process

Process hierarchy diagram

Object	Tool	Description
Package		Used to organize elements into groups
Process		Manages the creation of process hierarchies (root or parent processes, sub-processes and branches)
Process Decomposition Link		Draws a hierarchical link between two processes

Object creation

You create most objects in a BPM using one of the following methods:

Graphically, in the diagram window using the tool palette
From the Browser, by right-clicking an object, and select New→Object Type
From an object list, by adding a new row

These generic methods for creating objects are detailed in the General Features Guide and, therefore only the specific creation behavior of some objects are explained in the corresponding sections in this manual.

For more information on how to create an object, see section Creating an object in chapter Managing Objects in the General Features Guide .

Object properties modification

You can modify the properties of any object in a BPM using one of the following methods:

From the object property sheet
From the object list
From the object symbol in the diagram

These generic methods for modifying object properties are detailed in section Modifying object properties in chapter Managing Objects in the General Features Guide .