Chapter 4 Building Business Process Diagrams

Variables (BPM)

A variable is a data container, which holds temporary values that can be passed between processes as input and output parameters, and which are important for their correct execution. For example, variables are useful to determine routing decisions or to build the messages a process has to send.

A variable can be created in a choreography diagram with any orchestration languages, and is associated with a process implemented by an operation.

Variables can be used in conjunction with:

Processes – to build the process messages
Correlation keys – to identify a process instance using a set of variables
Data transformations – to copy data from one variable to another

By default, a variable name or code must be unique within the parent scope (package, composite process, or model) but can be used by any process (activity) defined at the same level. However, two variables can share the same name when they belong to different composite processes contained in the same package.

Moving variables

When you move variables, the following rules apply:

Move to...	Description
Another model	A copy of the variable stays in the source model, when the variable is used by at least one process in that model, as external shortcuts for variables are not allowed.
Same model	A shortcut for the variable stays in the source process or package, when the variable is used by at least one process in that package.