Chapter 4 Building Business Process Diagrams

Resource Flows (BPM)

A resource flow allows a process to access a resource and describes an interaction between them. In the following example, the Register_complaint process creates, updates or deletes data contained in the Additional_info resource:

A resource can be created in a choreography diagram with any of the following target languages:

Analysis languages
Collaborative languages

A resource flow can also be created in a data flow diagram. For more information, see Working with the Data Flow Diagram chapter.

The way you draw a resource flow determines the way the process uses the resource:

Type	Description
From process to resource:	The process creates, updates or deletes data contained in the resource depending on the access modes selected in the resource flow property sheet.
From resource to process:	Data contained in the resource are read by the process.
Two ways:	If you select a Read access mode on a resource flow together with one or more other access modes (Create, Update, Delete), the resource flow symbol is bi-directional.

Message format

When working with the Analysis language and ebXML language, you can associate a message format with a resource flow in order to define the format of information exchanged between a process and a resource (see Message Formats (BPM)).

The following rules apply:

Reflexive flows (same source and destination process) are allowed on processes.
Two resource flows between the same source and destination objects are permitted, and called parallel flows.
A resource flow cannot link shortcuts.