Wed, 2023-10-18 09:00
BM
I am using ARIS BASIC and I wish to convert EPC to BPMN as I have seen in a video where the user easily converts EPC to BPMN by just clicking on the Change view button, but I do not seem to have that functionality in ARIS Basic. Is that functionality available in ARIS Basic, if so how to use it? If it is not available in ARIS Basic, in which package can I find that functionality?
Video for reference: https://www.ariscommunity.com/videos/bpmn-vs-epc (at 7:17)
Hello Bhargav,
I just watched the video. J-M did not show in the video, how to convert EPC to BPMN. The Change view button only changed the layout of the EPC to a different EPC layout. Likewise for the BPMN model the button reorganized the Layout from Role-focused to Application-focused. This only works because in ARIS you can connect more information with the BPMN process tasks than meets the eye in any BPMN model. J-M had two models of the same process in the different notations.
J-M mentions the possibility to convert EPC to BPMN for exporting to other tools understanding BPMN files at the end of the video. That is a very special use-case. May I ask, what your intention is?
J-M elaborated in the first part of the video the strengths and weaknesses of the two notations, so it should be clear, that they are not equivalent. They just don't contain the same information and hence there can be no button converting well-designed EPC to well-designed BPMN. That conversion is available in ARIS Cloud Enterprise. The assumption is that you use the conversion for kick-starting a logical process model for an IT implementation of your business process in BPMN while keeping it linked to your business process in EPC. You can make changes to the logical process enriching it with execution logic without impacting your business process model. In effect you have two different models in different notations living side-by-side for different purposes. However you can compare them and prove that they are in sync. If ever you discover in your logical design that the business process is lacking something you can go revisiting your business process.
Dear Bhargav,
Actually, the video shows via the feature Change view, means, how to change only the model layout without actually changing the model. That feature is available of ARIS Advanced and ARIS Enterprise.
But that video doesn't cover converting an EPC to BPMN. That function is called Generate Solution Design, available ARIS Enterprise via ARIS Architect, and it creates a new model (BPMN/E-BPMN) from an existing EPC model.
Here's an example of a simple Event-driven process chain (EPC) to be converted into an Enterprise BPMN collaboration diagam (E-BPMN):
The feature Generate Solution Design converts the EPC either in an BPMN or E-BPMN model. I recommend the latter because that way the organizational units are converted into Organizational unit lanes improving a lot the model's readability while keeping the relation to the connected functions.
The converted/generated model looks like this:
Of course, there are lot of more options to convert much more enriched EPCs, e.g. converting functions as more specific BPMN tasks, or instead of converting org. units into lanes using rather IT systems connected to functions as Application system type lane.
Cheers
Runè