Are you (and your employees) still in love with EPC models?
The eternal struggle - no, not between good and evil, but between the different modeling notations like Event Driven Process Chain (EPC) and Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) is still not yet decided finally.
There are good reasons pro and contra each of the approaches. With ARIS, you have the choice to select the appropriate one, fitting your needs.
However, if you have decided to use EPCs to document and visualize your business processes, that decision might lead to some undesired consequences. Would you like an example? Let us look at SAP Cloud ALM implementation projects. ARIS for SAP® Solutions enables you to import process models as custom processes from ARIS into SAP Cloud ALM. But using EPC based content, you will face some hurdles.
What hurdles will you find? Technically, there are different ways to import custom processes: you can either import them in BPMN format and will find BPMN models using lanes, task objects, events, etc. in the target system. In that case, you can assign notes, documents, user stories and requirements to the model and its elements for the following steps in the implementation project. Thus, the model and the specific objects can carry the relevant information on a granular level. This allows to drill down to specific annotations in a detailed context. And it is possible to re-use the task objects e.g., to define walk-through paths as test cases during test phase of the implementation project. An uncomplicated way to re-use existing BPMN models created and maintained in ARIS.
Furthermore, it is possible to import pictures of your processes in SVG format. As in that case, there is only a graphic made available, you can add further information in SAP Cloud ALM only to that image. So far, using EPC based models was only possible when choosing SVG based technique: the result was a picture of the process. If you need to get deeper information about the objects used in the model, you can navigate to the original model in ARIS portal. There, you can access all additional information provided. But the objects that are used in the model were not transferred to SAP. Consequently, to give an instance, it was not possible to use the task objects later for the test cases.
With the newest release ARIS 10 SR 27, the import of EPC based models (including column / row display) was drastically improved.
ARIS for SAP® Solutions now allows you to decide whether the model should be exported as SVG graphic or converted to BPMN. The model itself remains unchanged in ARIS. But in SAP Cloud ALM you will find a corresponding model in BPMN notation with all the advantages mentioned above: assigning user stories or requirements to the process entries, re-using task objects for testing, etc.
Navigation via accelerator links in SAP Cloud ALM will lead you to the original EPC based model in ARIS portal. This approach helps you to better align stakeholders from both sides: Business and IT (Information Technology).
The advantages are obvious:
- You do not have to re-model or adapt your EPC based process models.
- Process content not covered by BPMN like risks, goals, or regulations can be included in your documentation and is accessible in ARIS.
- Your employees do not need to learn another notation – ARIS users work with their EPC based content, people involved in the implementation project on SAP side receive the custom processes in a format they know and understand: BPMN.
- There is no need to adopt training materials, etc.
With this enhancement, connecting people on the business side and people on the IT side will become easier, supporting the diverse needs of all stakeholders involved. If you are interested in additional information, please have a look at How to use your ARIS Content in SAP® Cloud ALM Implementation projects. | ARIS BPM Community
Looking forward to your feedback, comments and thoughts.
Photo by Mayur Gala on Unsplash
