About BPMN

iGrafx 2011 and later supports version 2.0 of the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) standard. The BPMN 2.0 specification includes concepts introduced in prior specifications, so iGrafx also supports those earlier specifications as long as they do not conflict with the 2.0 standard. The BPMN specification is available at www.bpmn.org.

BPMN is a standard diagramming notation and methodology for describing business processes through Business Process Diagrams (BPD's). BPMN has been designed to coordinate the sequence of process steps and the messages that flow between different process participants. BPMN is targeted at a general level for business users, and also at a more specific level for process or systems implementers. BPMN creates a standardized bridge for the gap between the business process design and process implementation. While the Unified Modeling Language (UML) takes an object-oriented approach to the modeling of applications, BPMN takes a process-oriented approach to the modeling of systems

BPMN defines a standard for a set of diagramming conventions that extend traditional flowcharting. It specifies the appearance of activities in the diagram that have specific sequencing or synchronizing behaviors. For example, BPMN specifies the graphical appearance of events, activities, and gateways:

A BPMN event shape
indicating a synchronizing
or triggering event

A BPMN activity shape

A BPMN gateway shape
indicating sequence control

BPMN activities do work and generally do not do synchronization or sequencing control, such as gating at the input or making decisions on the output. However, an activity can synchronize on the arrival of a message from a separate process, and can send a message to another process. Certain uncontrolled flow may allow an activity to have multiple flow lines arriving, and an activity may have decision lines leaving it, though a best practice is to use gateways for controlling flow.
BPMN gateways control process flow by determining which activity or activities execute next. They handle merging and diverging flow, and they can make joins at the inputs or have conditional flow on the outputs.
BPMN events are like activities that do no work and require no resources. They either wait for something in particular to occur or cause it to occur, and they synchronize separate paths of execution in the same process or separate cooperating processes.

BPMN standards graphically represent several other specific behaviors such as subprocesses and activities that repeat.

The iGrafx products provide some key value-added functionality for BPMN, including real-time checking, automatic formatting of shapes and lines to match the standard, a BPMN Guide to aide in picking correct objects, a complete BPMN palette, and static checking. In addition, the iGrafx Process family of products provide discrete event simulation of BPMN processes, allowing you to do ‘what-if?’ analysis on your simulated process.