In the following video tutorial we will model a travel process using a BPMN diagram. To open the BPMN diagram click on "BPMN diagram" in the "Model types" area.
A BPMN diagram allows you to model processes - even cross-organizational. States are represented by "events", actions are represented by "activities". There is a causal relation between events and activities. Place the pool that stands for an employee. BPMN has an array of symbols. Thus, only the base symbols are displayed in the "Symbols" bar.
Place a start event. When you place a base symbol, all of the symbols allowed by the method are offered to you for selection. Select the "None" type because a certain type isn't necessary at the beginning of a process. There are several activities that must be carried out at the same time when booking a trip. Thus, model a gateway of the "Parallel Gateway" type.
Model the activities "Book flight" as a "User Task" and "Book hotel" as a "Service Task". The hotel reservation is made by a travel agency. Therefore, model the interaction with a pool to respresent this.
Model the pool "Travel agency" with the lanes "Employee travel agency" and "Customer service", which symbolize these two departments. Place a "Message Start Event" in the "Employee travel agency" lane to show that communication - here messages are exchanged - takes place. Connect it with "Check customer data" as a "User task".
Place "Reserve a hotel room" as a "Send task" in the "Customer service" lane and connect it to "Confirmation received" as a "Receive task".
Place "Compose response" als a "User task" in the "Employee travel agency“ lane and connect it with a Message End Event to show that this part of the process is concluded but a message must still be sent.
Connect "Check customer data" with "Reserve a hotel room" and connect "Confirmation received" with "Compose response".
Connect "Book hotel" with the Message Start Event in the "Employee travel agency" lane.
Connect the Message End Event in the "Employee travel agency" lane with the "Book hotel" task.
Now this communication has been completely modeled.
The hotel must confirm the reservation. So you need a third pool where you can model the fact that the hotel receives an inquiry, processes it and sends a response. The hotel process looks like this. Model a parallel gateway in the "Employee" pool to merge the parallel branches of the process.
The travel application can be declined. Model both alternatives. First, model a task named „Create travel application“ as a user task, followed by a gateway. Then model the end event „Travel application accepted“. Enter the name. Place the "Name" attribute. Mark the connection as a "Standard Sequence Flow" to emphasize that this is the standard process.
You see that the connection is automatically given a slash as an indicator. As an alternative, model the trip with a car and without accomodations. To do so, you must check the route. Model a "Compensation Intermediate Event" called "Trigger flight and hotel cancellation". Model the "Travel with car" subprocess. When you move objects the size of the pool adjusts accordingly. Model the flight cancellation. Model the hotel cancellation. Optimize the display.
And, last but not least, you can save your model under the name "Travel process" for example.
