Design a BPM diagram

In Alfabet, you can model a business process with Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). The BPMN Diagram provide a clear and consistent way to represent process flows, activities, decision points, events, data, and interactions between participants. Modeling business processes with BPMN helps organizations visualize end-to-end workflows, identify inefficiencies, and uncover opportunities for optimization and automation. BPMN diagrams make complex processes easier to understand by showing the sequence of activities, information exchanges, and decision logic that drive business operations.

The BPMN Diagram show can process activities, events, gateways, and flows. Additionally, the diagram may include business applications, application associations, and data objects (business objects) that enrich the process diagrams with application landscape information, enabling users to visualize which applications support specific business process activities. Business applications and data objects (=Business Objects) may be added to the BPMN diagram. Business data usage can be specified in the diagram by adding a message flow connection between a data object and a business process. Please note however that if the business data usage already exists in the database, then two arrows will be displayed for the message flow. The input or output arrow that is not required must be manually hidden in the diagram via the context menu for the message flow.

You can design a diagram by visualizing all relevant business process models and/or business processes and their business process rules as well as the business process information flows to each other or to organizations.

The following elements can be added to a BPMN diagram:

Activities:

• Task: Represents a single activity or unit of work performed within a business process. Tasks are mapped to the Alfabet class Business Process
• Sub-Process: Represents a group of related activities modeled as a single process step to simplify complex process flows. Sub-processes are mapped to the Alfabet class Business Process

Artifacts

• Business Application: Represents an application that supports or performs business process activities.
• Data Object: Represents information, documents, or data that is created, consumed, or modified during process execution. Data objects are mapped to the Alfabet class Business Object.

Events

• Start Event: Indicates where a business process begins and defines the trigger that initiates the process.
• End Event: Indicates where a business process ends and marks the completion of a process path.
• Intermediate Event: Represents an event that occurs during process execution, such as a message, timer, or exception.

Gateway: Controls the routing of the process flow and is used for decisions, branching, merging, and parallel execution paths.

Connections:

• Sequence Flow: Defines the order in which activities, events, and gateways are executed within a process.
• Message Flow: Represents communication and information exchange between different process participants. Message flows are mapped to the Alfabet class Data Usage.
• Generic Association: Connects BPMN elements with related artifacts, data objects, or annotations to provide additional context.
• Application Association: Connects BPMN elements with business applications to show which applications support specific process activities.

Text Annotation: Provides additional explanatory information about process elements without affecting process execution.

Access the BPMN Diagram

1. Go to the content area of the business process you have access permissions for and navigate to the Diagrams page > BPMN Diagram. The diagram displays either a default view showing the subordinate business processes or a BPMN diagram that has been designed by an authorized user.
2. You can edit the basic attributes of any business process, application, business object, or data usage displayed in the diagram that you have access permissions for.
   • Click the asset to open the inspection pane, where you can edit the displayed attributes.
   • Double-click the asset to navigate to the content area, where you can edit the asset's attributes and relationships.
3. To edit the design of the diagram, click the  edit button > Open Diagram. This button is only be visible for users who have been granted to the Diagram Designer access via an administrative user.
4. Add diagram elements, connnections, and shapes as described in the section Quick guide: Build diagrams with the Diagram Designer. The tool provides numerous options for adding repository objects to a diagram, simplifying complex networks of relationships, and enhancing visualizations through legends, colors, shapes, images, annotations, and other formatting elements.