“Business Process Modeling with BPMN & XPDL”. Introduction to business process modeling presented by Mike Marin in Costa Rica at the INCAE (Costa Rica) during aClub de Investigaciones Tecnológicas (CIT) and OMG event.

1. Business Process Modeling with BPMN & XPDL
Mike Marin, November 9, 2007
BPM Product Architect,
IBM
© 2007 IBM Corporation

2. Topics
 Process Modeling
 BPMN
 Process Modeling Methodologies
 Orchestration vs. Choreography
 XPDL
 WS-BPEL
 Putting all together
 Future
2 © 2007 IBM Corporation

3. Process Modeling
 Documenting the organization business processes using a
formal notation
 Business processes describe how a business pursues its
objectives
 Graphical description of organization business process
3 © 2007 IBM Corporation

4. Need for Process Modeling
 Documentation of processes
 Ability to publish and share processes across the enterprise
Create process catalogs
 Not all processes are automated
E.g Retail sales is heavily manual
E.g. Manufacturing automated by machines
4 © 2007 IBM Corporation

5. Level of Abstraction
 High Level Documentation
 Process Maps
• Simple flow charts of activities
 Process improvement
 Process Descriptions
• Extended with additional measurable information
 Executable Models
 Process Models
• Enough information to analyze, simulate, and execute
 Automated processes may execute in multiple engines
5 © 2007 IBM Corporation

6. Why Process Modeling?
 Create complete
documentation of processes
and procedures
 Communicate with subject
matter experts
 Provide visibility into the
enterprise
 Facilitate communication
between the business side
and the IT department
6 © 2007 IBM Corporation

7. Topics
 Process Modeling
 BPMN
 Process Modeling Methodologies
 Orchestration vs. Choreography
 XPDL
 WS-BPEL
 Putting all together
 Future
7 © 2007 IBM Corporation

8. BPMN
 Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)
 BPMN a flow-chart based notation for defining Business Processes
Describe interaction between processes
 Goal
Design to be used by business analysts
Ordering Office Supplies
Receive Check Complain
Deny
Supply Supply About
Request
Request Cabinet Requester
E.G., New Pen
8 © 2007 IBM Corporation

9. Origins of BPMN
 BPMN 1.0 (05/2004)
Specification was released to the public.
Under the Business Process Management Institute (BPMI)
 BPMN 1.0 (02/2006)
Adopted as an OMG standard
 BPMN 1.1 (2007)
Completed and available soon
 An Object Management Group (OMG) specification
9 © 2007 IBM Corporation

10. BPMN Development Drivers
 Acceptable and usable by the business
community for general process modeling
Conflicting
Requirements!
 Generate executable processes from a model
 BPMN is intended to be Methodology Agnostic
 Methodologies will give guidance as to the
purpose and level of detail for modeling
10 © 2007 IBM Corporation

11. BPMN Design Guidelines
 Use a top-down approach for notation design
 Decided what should be graphically displayed
• Allow extensibility
 The main end-user is a business analyst
 Usable on paper
• But modeling tools are expected for complete models
 Make different concepts as visually distinguishable as possible
 Define the line between simplicity and complexity
 Flow through the process should be unambiguous
11 © 2007 IBM Corporation

12. BPMN Design for Complexity
 Business Processes do include complex behavior. Yet, most
users desire a simple notation and supporting methodologies
 BPMN approach
 Use a basic, familiar flow-chart structure
 Create a small set of core elements
• Reuse familiar shapes where possible
 Create variations of the core elements to introduce
complexity.
• Some of the variations are not required for simple
modeling
12 © 2007 IBM Corporation

13. Diagram Elements
Activities Events Gateways Connectors
13 © 2007 IBM Corporation

14. BPMN Basic Concepts
Flow Objects Connectors Swimlanes
Events Sequence
Flow
Pool
Name
Activities Message Flow
Lanes (within a Pool)
Name Name
Gateways
Name
Association
14 © 2007 IBM Corporation

15. BPMN Example
15 © 2007 IBM Corporation

16. Topics
 Process Modeling
 BPMN
 Process Modeling Methodologies
 Orchestration vs. Choreography
 XPDL
 WS-BPEL
 Putting all together
 Future
16 © 2007 IBM Corporation

17. Process Modeling Methodologies
 BPMN is intended to be methodology independent
 Simple or complex diagrams can be created based on the
chosen methodology
 Methodologies determine what information is captured
about a process and how the process is constructed
 Many methodologies can be used for modeling with BPMN
 Some require extended Artifacts
 Examples of methodologies:
 LOVeM, EPCs, RAD methodology, IDEF
 Consulting organization methodologies
17 © 2007 IBM Corporation

18. General Modeling Concepts
 A process is chronological
 Accurate models should be oriented on a time line
 Processes generally begin with triggering events, and work
their way through to significant business results
 They can also represent smaller segments of re-usable
work
 All tasks or activities are assigned to roles that are meaningful
to people in the business.
 A complete model should display how objects or data (or
both) are transferred and where they are going
 A process can be modeled in a hierarchical fashion
 The choices made for decisions, which occur within a process,
determine which of all potential paths will be taken
18 © 2007 IBM Corporation

19. General Modeling Guidelines
 Establish organization standards or guidelines for developing
models and naming model elements
 Establish naming conventions for each type of modeling
object.
 Avoid redundancy in naming
 Establish a set of standard nouns, verbs, and acronyms that
are used for naming objects
 Establish standards for versioning methods associated at the
process model and artifact level to provide requirement
traceability
19 © 2007 IBM Corporation

20. Topics
 Process Modeling
 BPMN
 Process Modeling Methodologies
 Orchestration vs. Choreography
 XPDL
 WS-BPEL
 Putting all together
 Future
20 © 2007 IBM Corporation

21. Orchestration vs. Choreography
 Orchestration: Workflow, internal processes, private
processes
 Contained within one Pool
 Choreography: Collaboration, global processes, B2B processes
 Defined by the interaction between Pools
21 © 2007 IBM Corporation

22. Orchestration vs. Choreography
Orchestration
 Orchestration defines processes that are internal to a specific
organization
They are contained within a single Pool
Rejected
Accepted or
Receive Rejected?
Order
Supplier
Ship Order
Accepted Fill Order Close Order
Send Make Accept
Invoice Payment Payment
22 © 2007 IBM Corporation

23. Process Orchestration
 A Process that uses other external Processes
 It has control over the process
 It is executable
 A End-To-End System view from the point of one of the
participants
23 © 2007 IBM Corporation

24. Orchestration vs. Choreography
Choreography
 A Choreography process
depicts the interactions
Receive
Patient
Send Doctor Send Send Medicine Receive
Receive Appt. Prescription
Request Symptoms Request Medicine
Pickup
between two or more
Illness
Occurs
8) Pickup your medicine
business entities
10) Here is your medicine
6) I feel sick and you can leave
1) I want to see doctor
5) Go see doctor 9) need my medicine
Shown by the Message
Receptionist/
Doctor
Flow between the Pools
Receive Send Receive
Receive
Doctor Send Appt. Prescription Medicine Send Medicine
Symptoms
Request Pickup Request
 Or a sequence of
interaction (global) types
of activities
Arrange
Request Arrange Evaluate Fill Pick-up
Prescription
Doctor Appt. Symptoms Prescription Prescription
Illness Pickup
Occurs
24 © 2007 IBM Corporation

25. Choreography
 Away to define message interaction between systems
 It is not executable
Purchase
Order
Message
Rejected
Message
Order
Response
Message
Shipment
Message
25 © 2007 IBM Corporation

26. Choreography
Purchase
Order
Message
Rejected
Message
Organization Organization
A Order B
Response
Message
Shipment
Message
WSDL
26 © 2007 IBM Corporation

27. Orchestration Example
Organization B
Purchase Order Process
Purchase
Start Check
Order
Process Inventory
Message
Reject
Rejected Reject
Message request
Reject
Approve
Approved
Order
Accepted
Response
request
Message
Dispatch
Shipment
Shipment Reply to
Message Customer
Choreography Orchestartion
27 © 2007 IBM Corporation

28. Topics
 Process Modeling
 BPMN
 Process Modeling Methodologies
 Orchestration vs. Choreography
 XPDL
 WS-BPEL
 Putting all together
 Future
28 © 2007 IBM Corporation

29. XPDL
 XML Process Definition Language (XPDL)
 A modeling language for process definition
 Goals
 Process definition model interchange between tool
29 © 2007 IBM Corporation

30. Origins of XPDL
 WPDL 1.0 (10/1999)
 Workflow Process Definition Language
 XPDL 1.0 (10/2002)
 XML version of Process Definition Language
 XPDL 2.0 (10/2005)
 Incorporated BPMN constructs
 A Workflow Management Coalition (WFMC) specification
 WfMC Reference Model Interface 1 – process definition
30 © 2007 IBM Corporation

31. XPDL 2.0 Purpose
 A persistent format for BPMN
 XPDL provides an XML file format
 BPMN provides a graphical notation
 Back compatible with XPDL 1.0
 XPDL and BPMN address the same modeling space
31 © 2007 IBM Corporation

32. Tool Specific Graphical Information
 Each tool adds its own graphical information
 Same XPDL can be displayed different by different tools
32 © 2007 IBM Corporation

33. XPDL – BPMN
 BPMN
 Graphical notation
 No file format
 XPDL
 XML file format
 No graphics
Both are modeling languages
Addressing the same process space
33 © 2007 IBM Corporation

34. Topics
 Process Modeling
 BPMN
 Process Modeling Methodologies
 Orchestration vs. Choreography
 XPDL
 WS-BPEL
 Putting all together
 Future
34 © 2007 IBM Corporation

35. WS-BPEL
 Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)
 An executable process definition language for web services
composition
 Goal
 Complement the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) with
executable process definitions
35 © 2007 IBM Corporation

36. Origins of BPEL
 BPEL4WS 1.0 (7/2002)
 Original proposal from BEA, IBM, Microsoft
 Combined ideas from IBM’s WSFL and Microsoft’s XLANG
 BPEL4WS 1.1 (5/2003)
 Revised proposal submitted to OASIS
 With additional contributions from SAP and Siebel
 WS-BPEL 2.0 (4/2007)
 Approved as OASIS standard
 An OASIS specification
36 © 2007 IBM Corporation

37. XPDL and BPEL
XPDL BPEL
 Modeling language  Executable language
 For process diagram  For Web Services composition
interchange
 Graphical information  Transaction semantics
 Simulation information  Abstract processes
 Participants  Nicely fit in Web Services stack
 Etc.  Etc.
37 © 2007 IBM Corporation

38. BPEL and XPDL Usage Patterns
XPDL
Simulation Modeling
Tools Tools
XPDL XPDL
Design
Tools
XPDL +
Extensions BPEL
BPEL
Execution Execution
Engine A Engine B
38 © 2007 IBM Corporation

39. Topics
 Process Modeling
 BPMN
 Process Modeling Methodologies
 Orchestration vs. Choreography
 XPDL
 WS-BPEL
 Putting all together
 Future
39 © 2007 IBM Corporation

40. Putting all together
 BPMN
BPMN
 Process modeling
Pool 1 Pool 2
 XPDL
 File format
 BPM functionality one way bidirectional
 BPEL
 BPM functionality
BPEL XPDL
 Web services
composition
BPEL Engine Web Services BPM Engine
40 © 2007 IBM Corporation

41. Topics
 Process Modeling
 BPMN
 Process Modeling Methodologies
 Orchestration vs. Choreography
 XPDL
 WS-BPEL
 Putting all together
 Future
41 © 2007 IBM Corporation

42. Current Standards Situation
n
io
at
fic
Model Exchange
BPMN 1.1
eci
Sp
N
PM
XDPL 2.0
B
Current
Implementations Diagram
Projection of
Metamodel
Not in
BPMN
Implicit BPMN BPDM 1.0
Semantics
42 © 2007 IBM Corporation

43. Planned Standards Situation
BPMN 2.0 Specification
BPMN 2.0
Diagram Model Exchange
Projection of
Metamodel XDPL 3.0?
BPDM 2.0
43 © 2007 IBM Corporation

44. Thank You!
44 © 2007 IBM Corporation