There are some bugs/proposals of BPMN models improvement.
1. When you work with large pool containing a lanes and you need to reduce/increase a size of pool you cannot select pool’s right side because in this case lane’s right side is selected. So to change pool’s size you should scroll to the beginning of the model every time. It is not convenient.
2. Adding additional information to the connection. When you want to show this information e.g. after flow’s splitting it always represented as object (square bracket with dotted line). It is not convenient in many cases.
3. Deleting of the lanes with comprising objects. When you want delete a lane and you want all objects on the lane survive you should select all objects, then move out the lane and complete deleting. It would be great you just delete lane and all objects remain.
4. It is not proposal but question – are there any plans to add Choreography diagram?
5. It is very useful thing – models grid. But when you use pools or/and lanes you cannot see it so you should to make ‘No fill’ color for pool. And there 2 problems:
- it is too hard to select such pool
- when you copy model and paste to Word it pasted with black filling.
Hi Alexander,
have you tried the latest version of Aris Express or the latest version of our standard products (which were released a few days ago)? We added some new features and changed some of the standard behavior for BPMN. Maybe you will like it (You can find them here: http://www.ariscommunity.com/users/sascha-schneider/2010-04-19-features-en-detail-bpmn-2-support-aris
To your points:
1) It is true that it is impossible to select the pool, if the header is not visible. But if you just want to increase or decrease the size of the pool, it is enough to select a lane inside the pool and resize it. The pool always adapt its size to enclose its lanes.
2) Adding addtional information to connections in Aris Express is restricted. If you look at other model types (e.g. EPC), there is only one single attribute which is offered for this - the name attribute. This is the same for BPMN models. The attributes "Text annotation 1-3" are used to annotate the connections in a bpmn-like way - with bracket and dotted connection. Our standard products have much more attributes, and therfore much more possibility to add information to connections. So it is not a restriction of BPMN handling, but of ARIS Express.
3) This is a good point. Adding and removing lanes without moving or cutting existing objects. We will try to consider this feature for improvements in future.
4) We don't have a schedule for these features yet.
5) In order to select a transparent pool, you have to click on the border or on the header (or the name attribute in case if it has been moved). The advantage of this behavior is, that if you are working with the objects inside the pool or lane, then it is easier, because you can use for example the lasso selection, instead of selecting the pool very often by chance. Unfortunately, this advantage leads to the drawback, that it is more difficult to select the pool. I don't see a satisfying solution for this problem yet.
That the pasted transparent pools are filled black in word must be a bug. But I cannot reproduce this, at least not on my machine. If it is still reproducible with the latest version, could you please provide the amf file and the word file, so that we have a chance to investigate and fix this bug.
Wed, 09/01/2010 - 12:23
Hi Sasha!
Thank you for quick answer! All my proposals are only about professional tool ARIS Business architect 7.1.0.490292 (not ARIS Express). I’ve noticed it in the name of topic.
So:
1. See the picture – I just have resized a lane but as you see result is not expectant. Moreover you can see the problem with lanes’ borders crossing.
.png)
2. If you add some conditions to lines it would be great to show attribute without any symbols (just see a picture). It is impossible now.
.jpg)
5. About advantage of this behavior is, that if you are working with the objects inside the pool or lane, then it is easier, because you can use for example the lasso selection. Yes, it’s true, but there is another problem – it is impossible to work with lasso if pool not transparent :(
About black filling – just look at pictures.
In Business Architect:
In Word after paste
Hi Alexander,
1) This is definitely a bug and must not happen. But we have improved the pool and lane handling in our latest version of Aris BA. And this bug should be fixed there now.
2) As mentioned before: the dotted lines and the bracket must only appear for the attributes "text annotation 1-3". To add a condition to your connection, there is a special attribute called "Condition expression". If this is maintained, the designer shows it beside the connection (if the bpmn 2.0 template is used) without further brackets. Read more about this here: http://www.ariscommunity.com/users/sascha-schneider/2010-04-19-creating-bpmn-objects-aris under topic "Placing Text Annotations".
3) In the latest version of ABA we changed this behavior, so that you can use lasso selection also in colored pools which contains other flow objects. See http://www.ariscommunity.com/users/sascha-schneider/2010-07-20-selecting-objects-bpmn-pools-and-lanes.
Black Pools: This is definitely a bug. Maybe it has been fixed in meanwhile, because I cannot reproduce it here. But if not, please provide us the model (xml-export should be enough) and the word file, so that we can do more investigations.
Wed, 09/01/2010 - 13:15
Hi Alexander,
you are welcome. I'm being glad that I could help you.
To Point 5: Since the problem occurred in ARIS BA, the best way is to contact the ARIS support. Then you can be sure, that the normal process will be followed with all the advantages for you and us.
Wed, 09/01/2010 - 14:26
