What is BPMN?
BPMN stands for Business Process Model and Notation. It is an international process model standard and it deals with a graphic notation that allows developing a sequence of business processes. A business process is an organized flow or sequence of activities. Therefore, BPMN provides a common language so that developers can perform the business logic in a clear, complete, and efficient way.
To develop business flows, there are several tools to choose. For instance, you can build them using a totally free tool called Eclipse, which is well-known among developers. Eclipse requires that an Activity plugin is installed. This open code plugin is distributed under the Apache license and it is based on BPMN 2.
If you need more information, please go to Activiti.org webpage to learn more about this topic.
Some basic components in a Business Process diagram
In a BPMN diagram, there is a set of graphic elements or components that collaborate in the representation of business processes. Some of the basic components are listed below:
Event
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- Start (A start event indicates where a process starts.)
- End (An end event indicates the end (of a path) of a (sub)process.)
Activity
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- Service task (All work that is executed outside the process engine should be represented – in a declarative way- using a Service Task.)
- Script task (A script task is an automatic activity. When a process execution arrives at the script task, the corresponding script is executed.)
- Call activity (subprocess) (It is often called embedded subprocess. This component calls a subprocess when process execution arrives at the activity).
Gateway
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- Exclusive Gateway (An exclusive gateway, also called the XOR gateway or, more technically, the exclusive data-based gateway, is used to model a decision in the process.)
- Inclusive Gateway (The functionality of the inclusive gateway is based on the incoming and outgoing sequence flow. Fork: all outgoing sequence flow conditions are evaluated and for the sequence flow conditions that evaluate to true the flows are followed in parallel, creating one concurrent execution for each sequence flow. Join: all concurrent executions arriving at the inclusive gateway wait in the gateway until an execution has arrived for each of the incoming sequences flows that have a process token. This is an important difference with the parallel gateway. So in other words, the inclusive gateway will only wait for the incoming sequence flows that will be executed. After the join, the process continues past the joining inclusive gateway.)
Flow
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- Sequence Flow (A sequence flow is visualized as an arrow going from the source element towards the target element. The arrow always points towards the target.)
Where is BPMN used at Intraway?
BPMN is in charge of orchestrating the provision of network elements and systems (mobile networks: 3G, LTE, broadband service: ADSL, VDSL, GPON, MPLS networks, etc.), which intervene in the customer´s processes using our product, Symphonica.
At the Intraway Delivery area, we receive setting requirements to be applied to Symphonica. These requirements consider several business processes that depend on many factors. Thus, it is necessary to perform an analysis of all the provisioning processes that our customer is currently using or will use in the future, so as to then develop business processes. In most of the cases, BPMN are settings customized according to the Customer’s needs and these settings include an essential part of the product and it is one of the added values that Intraway gives to Symphonica.
