Business Process Modelling

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Jason MacKenzie
Posts: 6
Joined: 12 Jun 2012, 18:40

I'm interested in understanding how the business process modelling in Essential relates to process modelling in tools that support BPMN.

I'm assuming the goal in Essential is to simply identify processes, sub processes and their related events along with the related elements in the model. Whereas a BMPN tool is modelling the process in much more detail.

Is this an accurate assessment? I ask because I know that tools like Rationale System Architect support BPMN and I am assuming you excluded it for a reason.

Thanks again!

Jason
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jonathan.carter
Posts: 1087
Joined: 04 Feb 2009, 15:44

It is certainly not our intention to have Essential become a BPM tool.
We are focussing on the 'architectural' information about the business processes - who is performing them, what capabilities do they provide, which applications support them etc.

We take a slightly different approach to many other tools when it comes to defining the business process flows. Rather than starting with a flow, we start with a process definition (name, description, relationships to capabilities, etc.) and then use the flow to describe how it works and therefore the dependencies that exist between it and its sub-processes and activities. Of course, in terms of modelling workflow, you can start with the process flow - but the point here is that the flow is the description of a particular process and we even derive the name of the flow automatically from the process that it is describing.

In terms of things like BPMN, we take a notation-independent approach. It's interesting that since we launched Essential, there are a number of different notations that people have asked about, XPDL, BPEL, BPMN to name a few. Rather than provide those notations in the tool when modelling, we provide the capability to render the processes that have been defined in the model in whatever notation that is required, via the Essential Viewer. For example, we provide UML Activity Diagram notation out of the box.

We are aware that there may be some notation nuances that we lack in the business process modelling but we are really keen to keep the more 'programming' aspects (e.g. as in BPEL) out of the business process definitions. Also, you'll notice that we don't use swim lanes in the diagrams but define the roles and actors against the process definitions. This means that we can work with business processes and define relationships to them without knowing the specifics of its flow (or how it works under the hood) - and this is useful for scenarios such as process out-sourcing. However, if the particular notation requires things like swim lanes, we have the knowledge in the model to produce them.

Having said all that, it's probably more useful things like BPMN to be exported in the XML dialect - and of course we can use things like that to import business process definitions and relationships from BPM tools. We are already exploring open-source BPM tools and how we would work along side them to provide the power of BPM with the power of the architectural perspective of the processes.

Jonathan
Essential Project Team
Jason MacKenzie
Posts: 6
Joined: 12 Jun 2012, 18:40

That's what I thought but thank you for the detailed response. Your support is exceptional and much appreciated.

Jason
aducci
Posts: 14
Joined: 14 Oct 2011, 13:42

jonathan.carter wrote: We are already exploring open-source BPM tools and how we would work along side them to provide the power of BPM with the power of the architectural perspective of the processes.

Jonathan
Has any further development/progress happened in this space?
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jonathan.carter
Posts: 1087
Joined: 04 Feb 2009, 15:44

The capability to import from such sources is already available and we have imported process information from a process modelling tool via XMI but we don't have any generic imports available for things like BPMN or BPEL.

Similarly, the ability to export information about the processes defined in the Essential repository in various formats is available but what we capture lacks the detail required by a BPM tool, in order to execute processes. However, it is possible today to export at least a good starting point for such tools but again, we don't have any generic exports at this time.

We'd be happy to help you with any specific imports or exports to or from process modelling tools.

Jonathan
Essential Project Team
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