Hello,
I am currently working on a level 1-5 model in ARIS designer
I have drawn the L1, L2 in VACD
Planning to draw L3, L4, L5 in BPMN as I need swimlanes
The question is how do I link a process at L3 ( say 3.1.1) to (say 4.2.3) ?
Where I would have drawn 2 different BPMN diagrams for 3.1.1 in 3.1s L2 and 4.2.3 in 4.2s L2, not sure which symbol to use, help me out folks
Hi Abhishek,
you may be surprised to read, that BPMN 2.0 only supports 2 levels of processes: The process and the sub-process.
And the link between those levels works differently. At the top level you may use the Process diagram, if you do not need to depict interactions with other processes of the top level or external Participants. (One exception, see below). If you want to depict such interactions - internal or external - you need a Collaboration diagram, where each process (aka Participant) is represented by a Pool.
Here is the exception: If you need to integrate another process, e.g. a support process, in your process like it were part of your process you can use a Call Activity. This links the called process in such a way that it is instantiated when the process token reaches the Call Activity and the Call Activity only completes with the completion of the called process.
The "second level" process is the Sub-process. It works just like the call activity. The big difference is, that the sub-process is part of your process. It is not re-usable elsewhere like a process called by a Call Activity.
The sub-process symbol may be expanded and then it will show the sub-process inside its symbol. That is the reason why you can't use Lanes in sub-processes: It is not allowed to show Lanes inside the sub-process symbol.
Where neither the Call Activity nor the sub-process are the adequate means to show the interaction between processes you have to go for Collaboration diagrams. Each Pool in such a diagram represents a process and they exchange message flows.
What you are trying to do here is most likely a single process with multiple roles. There is no reason I can see why you want to split the process in two processes.
BTW: A data object cannot be part of a flow. A flow only takes place between tasks, events and gateways. You would have to show a flow from 1.1.2 to 1.1.3 or the process will end at 1.1.2.
And here is a link to a post where I described a best practice for linking processes in Collaboration diagrams: https://www.ariscommunity.com/users/pennyb/2016-05-02-use-occurrence-copies-process-interfaces-signal-events
So far I have not come across a solution that convinced me better.
Regards, M. Zschuckelt
I need to go through this thread once
The questions I have are obviously from a newbie who's trying to map his L4s and L5s in BPMN 2.0
This is what I have done in my models it looks like it doesn't violate any rule but I don't know how much right this would be
1- I have modeled let's say an L1 process here that has 2 tasks (1.1 and 4.1)
.png)
2- This is how the L2 maps look like
Process 1.1 Get order details
.png)
Process 4.1 Shipping process
.png)
It could be seen that there's an input from the process 1.1.3 to 4.1.1 which is shown in both the ways in the respective L2 maps
Also the relationships for 4.1.1 has these links shown, I am not much used the the swim lane thing and many of my process have not been defined a particular swim lane.. so it's not a matter of concern for me
.png)
Is it a right way to do what I actually need?
Hi Abhishek,
you may be surprised to read, that BPMN 2.0 only supports 2 levels of processes: The process and the sub-process.
And the link between those levels works differently. At the top level you may use the Process diagram, if you do not need to depict interactions with other processes of the top level or external Participants. (One exception, see below). If you want to depict such interactions - internal or external - you need a Collaboration diagram, where each process (aka Participant) is represented by a Pool.
Here is the exception: If you need to integrate another process, e.g. a support process, in your process like it were part of your process you can use a Call Activity. This links the called process in such a way that it is instantiated when the process token reaches the Call Activity and the Call Activity only completes with the completion of the called process.
The "second level" process is the Sub-process. It works just like the call activity. The big difference is, that the sub-process is part of your process. It is not re-usable elsewhere like a process called by a Call Activity.
The sub-process symbol may be expanded and then it will show the sub-process inside its symbol. That is the reason why you can't use Lanes in sub-processes: It is not allowed to show Lanes inside the sub-process symbol.
Where neither the Call Activity nor the sub-process are the adequate means to show the interaction between processes you have to go for Collaboration diagrams. Each Pool in such a diagram represents a process and they exchange message flows.
What you are trying to do here is most likely a single process with multiple roles. There is no reason I can see why you want to split the process in two processes.
BTW: A data object cannot be part of a flow. A flow only takes place between tasks, events and gateways. You would have to show a flow from 1.1.2 to 1.1.3 or the process will end at 1.1.2.
And here is a link to a post where I described a best practice for linking processes in Collaboration diagrams: https://www.ariscommunity.com/users/pennyb/2016-05-02-use-occurrence-copies-process-interfaces-signal-events
So far I have not come across a solution that convinced me better.
Regards, M. Zschuckelt