Assigning BPMN collaboration diagram (2.0 beta)

Good news here: The upcoming service release 8 of ARIS 7.1 will allow assigning a BPMN collaboration diagram to a function. Use cases are functions in ARIS, too. So it should be possible to assign a BPMN collaboration diagram.

Thanks Sebastian, much appreciated. Just a question, what would you say is the preferred notation going forward, especially in a SOA environment (BPMN or EPC)?

Regards

Etienne

Hehe Etienne, that's the multi-million dollar question nobody can answer :-) If you describe workflow processes, which should be automated, I would go forward with BPMN 2. But if you also want to document more abstract business processes, I would evaluate if it is not better to use EPCs for those processes. The drawback of this mixed approach is that you have to train people in two different notations. So I don't think there is a clear answer valid for everyone, but it really depends on the own situation.

Thanks for the reply, in my opinion, EPC work better to portray business requirements and used by business analysts and then to use BPMN by system analysts when defining system & implementation requirements?

I fully agree, but some customers would argue that having two process notations is not good.

Just installed service release 8, but I still can't assign a BPMN collaboration diagram to a subprocess.

We use a BPMN process, existing of 4-8 subprocesses as "index" to 4-8 underlying collaboration diagrams (pools for customer, customer contact, specialist,..).

Collapsing a subprocess without having to assign an underlying model would also be useful.

This is intentional, since the assigned BPMN Process model only details the stuff that goes on within that subprocess. You should show the interaction between the participants on the higher level. 

The 2.0 spec explicitly distinguishes between a Collaboration and a Process (that's a change from the 1.x spec) and consequently it is implemented as two model types in ARIS. When you look at the subprocess description in the spec (10.2.5) it says that the subprocess only shows the details in a BPMN Process diagram:

"A Sub-Process is an Activity whose internal details have been modeled using Activities, Gateways, Events, and Sequence Flow. A Sub-Process is a graphical object within a Process, but it also can be “opened up” to show a lower-level Process."

Roland, I understand your answer, but modelling the interactions on a higher level is not working for us, as the detailed activities in which the interactions with other participants originate are important.

What we need is easily demonstrated by the United Motors Group. The model "assemble doors" is a BPMN model (1.x, but resembles a 2.0 collaboration diagram).

The higher level model "make-to-order" is a value added chain diagram, as are the higher level models. What we need is being able to model the "make-to-order" process as a sequence of BPMN subprocesses. This way the whole architecture is in BPMN-style.

Hi Jeffrey, I agree with Roland, this is the intention of 2.0 spec and it actually "helps' one to rethink your top level model to be more correct when viewing and also assists in less complex sub process assignments. I have used the Call Activity in some cases to get around this problem as it allows one to assign a sub process and create multiple lanes.

Any update regarding assigning a collaboration process from a sub-process element?

Jonas, in the release 7.2 you will be able to assign a collaboration process to a sub process element by using a Call Activity object. I've just tested this in the Beta version and it works.

Jori, according to Bruce Silver's Method and Style interaction between participants is illustrated using black pools in high level processes as well as in lower level sub-process. Using a call activity is not eligible, since the sub-process to be called isn't intentionally global nor reusable.

Also it is not possible to have a cancelation event as end state of in collaboration diagram, since you can't set the sub-process activity as transactional and assign it to a coll diagram.