BPMN Pools

iGrafx supports the BPMN concepts of pools and lanes. A pool contains exactly one process. BPMN lanes can subdivide an organization in a single process, and a BPMN pool can represent a completely separate organization. In iGrafx BPMN diagrams, pools are floating swimlanes, separated by white space that restricts the sequence flow across pools. A sequence flow can traverse lanes in a pool, but cannot flow between pools. Message Lines may be used to indicate message flow across pools. For more information about creating pools and lanes, see Swimlanes and Floating Swimlanes Procedures.

In the following diagram, the BPMN pools Customer and ACME are organizations that function cooperatively through a formalized messaging protocol. The ACME pool is also subdivided into lanes, two of which are shown: Sales and Credit & Invoicing.

In BPMN, sequence flow cannot connect between two independent processes (pools), and synchronizing message flow cannot connect within a single process (pool). To support this standard, sequence flow lines cannot cross the space between two pools on a BPMN diagram.

A BPMN pool commonly represents an external business partner with whom a primary BPMN pool and the process in it communicate. The diagram captures the primary process and the pattern of message exchange with the partners.

Pools that represent partners model abstract processes that may not have activities in them, or have activities that suggest or model the ordering of messages and the relationship between them. The partners may or may not contain any details of how the messages are implemented and handled, or how the work is done.

The Properties dialog box defines partners differently in process diagrams and BPMN diagrams. Each process diagram is considered to be a single messaging partner, although not all of them may be intended that way, especially subprocesses. In BPMN diagrams, each pool is considered a messaging partner; otherwise, the diagram is treated the same as a process diagram.