Two Perspectives Approach

Process Modeling Perspective

The Process Modeling perspective is a subset of the Process Development perspective. The Process Modeling perspective offers the option of designing a process, but this process is in status Draft and cannot be built and deployed. This perspective can serve as a starting point for process modeling, where a business analyst designs the process and hands it over to a developer to add the necessary technical details.

The Process Modeling perspective has a subset of the views that are available in the Process Development perspective, which are filtered to show only information relevant for business analyst type of users. Process models created in the Process Modeling perspective are not checked for errors and constraint violations and do not contain error markers. These process models are always created in status Draft , which can be changed to Released to Build in the Process Development perspective only. The process model can be built after the Released to Build status is set.

Process Development Perspective

The Process Development perspective offers a full set of capabilities for designing, implementing, building, and deploying a process. A developer can open the process which is designed by a business analyst in the Process Development perspective, perform the required changes to make the process executable, and finally change its status from Draft to Released to Build . Changing the status from Draft to Released to Build is irreversible.

A developer can also design from scratch and implement a process using the Process Development perspective as a starting point. Process models created in the Process Development perspective are always created in status Released to Build and are checked for errors and constraint violations.

Abstract Flow Objects

Both perspectives of the process composer have the same palette with flow objects, connections and artifacts used for process modeling. To enable business analyst type of users to easily design process models, the following abstract flow objects are included in the palette:

• Start event

• Intermediate event

• End event

• Activity

• Gateway

Abstract flow objects are available in both perspectives. You use them when the exact type of the flow object is not important, for example when designing a draft of a process model. However, all abstract flow objects in a process model must be converted to flow objects with a concrete type for the process model to be buildable. For example, if you use an abstract activity when you design your process model, you need to specify afterwards whether this activity is a human activity, automated activity, sub-process, and so on, before you are able to build and deploy the process model.

You convert abstract flow objects to flow objects with a concrete type as follows:

• Start event

  You can convert the abstract start event to a message start event only.

• Intermediate event

  You can convert the abstract intermediate event to one of the following intermediate event types:

  • Intermediate message event

  • Intermediate timer event

• End event

  You can convert the abstract end event to one of the following end event types:

  • Message end event

  • Error end event

  • Escalation end event

  • Termination event

  For more information about events, see Events .

• Activity

  You can convert the abstract activity to one of the following activity types:

  • Automated activity

  • Human activity

  • Mapping activity

  • Reporting activity

  • Referenced sub-process

  • Embedded sub-process

  For more information about activities, see Activities .

• Gateway

  You can convert the abstract gateway to one of the following gateway types:

  • Exclusive choice

  • Event-based choice

  • Parallel split

  • Uncontrolled merge

  • Parallel join

  For more information about gateways, see Gateways .