Business Process Management

Lecture 2: Essential Process Modelling in BPMN

Marlon Dumas

University of Tartu

firstname.lastname@ut.ee

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Business Process Lifecycle

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Purposes of Process Modeling

Business-level Models

Communication, simulation,

activity-based costing…

ProcessImplementation

ProcessAnalysis & Design

Process Enactment & Monitoring

Process Evaluation

“TO BE”Process Models

Exe

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P

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Mea

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vem

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Process Metrics

OrganizationalAnalysis

Tar

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“AS IS”Process Models

Detailed Models including

Data types, conditions, data mappings, fault

handling…

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Business Process Modeling Notation(BPMN)

• OMG Standard (nowadays version 2.0)• Both for business-oriented and executable models• Supported by a wide range of tools, e.g.

– Bizagi Process Modeller (free)– Signavio (http://www.signavio.com/) - SaaS– Oracle BPA – “kind of free”– ARIS – very sophisticated, the opposite of free– Logizian– MS Visio– Paper and pen! - No excuse not to start

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BPMN from 10 000 miles…

• A BPMN process model is a graph consisting of four types of elements (among others):

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Order Management Process in BPMNFirst Try

Check stock availability

Reject order

Confirm order

Send invoice

Ship goods

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A little bit more on Gateways …

• Exclusive Decision (XOR-split) / Merge (XOR-join)– Indicates locations within a business process where the

sequence flow can take two or more alternative paths.– Only one of the paths can be taken.– Depicted by a diamond shape that may contain a marker

that is shaped like an “X”.

• Parallel Fork (AND-split) / Join (AND-join)– Provide a mechanism to synchronize parallel flow and to

create parallel flow.– Depicted by a diamond shape that must contain a

marker that is shaped like a plus sign.

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Revised Order Management Process

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Beware: Beginner’s Mistake…

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When a claim is received, we first check if the claimant has a valid insurance policy. If not, the claim is rejected and the claimant is informed.

Otherwise, we assess the severity of the claim. Based on the outcome (simple or complex claim), we send the corresponding form to the claimant.

Once the form is returned, we check it for completeness.

If the form is complete, we register the claim in the Claims Management system and the evaluation of the claim may start.

Otherwise, we ask the claimant to update the form. When we receive the updated forms, we check them again and continue.

BPMN Exercise:Simplified Insurance Claim Registration

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Guidelines: Naming Conventions

1. Give a name to every event and task2. For tasks: verb followed by business object

name and possibly complement– Issue Driver Licence, Renew Licence via Agency

3. For message events: object + past participle– Invoice received, Claim settled

4. Avoid generic verbs such as Handle, Record…5. Label each XOR-split with a condition

– Policy is invalid, Claim is inadmissible

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Poll: Which model do you prefer?

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One more guideline…

• Model in blocks– Pair up each AND-split with an AND-join and each

XOR-split with a XOR-join, whenever possible– Exception: sometimes a XOS-split leads to two end

events – different outcomes (cf. order management example)

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When?

FlowsGateways

Which?

Data / Materials

What?

TasksEvents

Who?Organization

Process Modelling Viewpoints

Lanes &Pools

Data Objects, Stores

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Organizational Modelling in BPMN

• Pools – Independent organizational entities, e.g. • Customer, Supplier, East-Tallinn Hospital, South

Eastern Clinic

• Lanes – Classes of resources within the same organizational and collaboration space

• Sales Department, Marketing Department• Roles: Clerk, Manager, Engineer

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Running Example with Pools and Lanes

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BPMN Exercise: Lanes, Pools

• Claims Handling process at a car insurerA customer submits a claim by sending in relevant documentation. The Customer Service department checks the documents for completeness and registers the claim. The Claims Handling department picks up the claim and first checks the insurance policy. Then, an assessment is performed. If the assessment is positive, a garage is phoned to authorise the repairs and the payment is scheduled (in this order). In any case (whether the outcome is positive or negative), an e-mail is sent to the customer to notify the outcome.

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Data in BPMN

• Data Objects: logical data units required, created or modified by activities.– Input and output of a process activity

• Data stores: containers of data objects that need be persisted beyond the duration of a process instance

• Associations are used to link artifacts such as data objects and data stores with flow objects (e.g. activities).

Data Object

Directed association

Undirected association

Data Store

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Running Example with Data Object

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When a claim related to a major car accident is evaluated, a clerk first retrieves the corresponding car accident report from the Police Reports database. If the report is retrieved, it is attached to the claim file. The claim file and the police report serve as input to a claims handler who calculates an initial claim estimate. Then, an “action plan” is created based on a “checklist”. Based on the action plan and the initial claims estimate, a claims manager negotiates a settlement with the customer. After this negotiation, the claims manager makes a final decision, updates the claim file to record this decision, and sends a letter to the claimant to inform him/her of the decision.

Please depict all relevant documents in the model.

BPMN Exercise 3: Artifacts

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BPMN Main Elements - Recap

Flow Elements

Gateway

Event

Activity

Connections

Message

Flow

Association

ArtifactsText Annotation

Data Object

Swimlanes

Poo

l

La

ne

Data Store

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BPMN Flow Elements – Recap

Start Event Task

AND-Split

AND-Join

End Event Flow

XOR MergeXOR-Decision

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~c

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What’s wrong with this model?

X

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BPMN Gateways

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Example: OR gateways

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How can we fix this model?

X

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Exercise

Model the following fragment using OR gateways:

When a claim is received, it is registered. After registration, the claim is classified leading to two possible outcomes: simple or complex. If the claim is simple, the policy is checked. For complex claims, both the policy and the damage are checked independently.

Check also the self-test quiz available at: http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=essentials-of-process-modeling