Chapter 4 Building Business Process Diagrams

Flows (BPM)

A flow is a route the control flow takes between objects and potentially exchange data. The routing of the control flow is made using guard conditions defined on flows. If the condition is true, the control is passed to the next object.

A flow can be created in the following diagrams:

Choreography diagram with any target languages
Data flow diagram (see the "Working with the Data Flow Diagram" chapter)

In the following example the flow links the Process Order process to the Ship US Postal Ground process:

In all languages that support message formats, except orchestration languages, you can associate a message format with a flow in order to define the format of information exchanged between objects. In orchestration languages, the message format is used to specify the format of the message associated with an operation (see Message Formats (BPM)).

A flow can link shortcuts. A flow accepts shortcuts on both extremities to prevent it from being automatically moved when a process is to be moved. In this case, the process is moved and leaves a shortcut, but contrary to the other links, the flow is not moved. Shortcuts of flows do not exist, and flows remain in place in all cases.

The following rules apply:

Reflexive flows (same source and destination process) are allowed on processes.
Two flows between the same source and destination objects are permitted, and called parallel flows.