Fundamentals Flashcards
What are BPMN object types? (4)
Flow Objects
Connecting Objects
Swimlanes
Artifacts
What are “Flow Objects”? (3)
Flow objects represent the activities, events, and gateways in a business process. They include:
1-Tasks
2-Events
3-Gateways
What are “Connecting Objects”? (3)
Connecting objects are used to illustrate the flow and connections between different elements in the process. They include:
1-Sequence Flow
2-Message Flow
3-Association
What are “Artifacts”? (3)
Artifacts are used to provide additional information or details about a process. They include:
1-Data Object
2-Group
3-Annotation
What is a Task?
Represent the work or activities performed within the process / Unit of work / the job to be done
What is an Event?
Represent something that happens during the process, such as the start or end of a process, a message received, or an error occurrence.
What is a Gateway?
Represent decision points or branching in the process flow, determining which path to follow based on specific conditions - Logic of the process, could act as decision point
What is a Sequence Flow?
Represents the order and direction of the flow between activities, events, and gateways.
Defines the execution order of activities.
What is a Message Flow?
Represents the flow of messages between two participants or pools.
Message Flow symbolizes information flow across organizational boundaries. Message flow can be attached to pools, activities, or message events. The Message Flow can be decorated with an envelope depicting the content of the message.
What is an Association?
Represents a relationship or connection between a flow object and additional information or artifacts.
What is a Data Object?
Represents data used or produced by an activity.
A Data Object represents information flowing through the process, such as business documents, e-mails, or letters.
What is a Group?
Represents a visual group of related activities or tasks.
What is an Annotation?
Provides additional explanatory information or comments about the process.
8 different types of tasks
1-User task
2-Service task
3-Script task
4-Business rule task
5-Receive task
6-Send task
7-Manual task
8-Call activity
What is “User Task”?
Represents a task that requires human interaction or input. It typically involves a user or actor performing an activity manually.
What is “Service Task”?
Represents an automated task or activity that is performed by a software system or a service. It may involve invoking a web service, executing a script, setting a value for a variable or interacting with an external system. i.e. credit card validation in E-commerce, automated email notification, data backup
What is “Script Task”?
Represents a task that involves the execution of a script or code. It can be used to perform calculations, data manipulation, or any other custom logic required within the process. i.e. calculating the cost, data cleansing, automated UAT, scheduled report generation, change user role in PBI
What is “Business Rule Task”?
Represents a task that evaluates business rules or decision criteria to determine the next course of action. It involves applying predefined rules to make decisions within the process flow. i.e. classifying a customer based on expected annual purchase, loan approval, discount eligibility check in retail, employee promotion
What is “Receive Task”?
Represents a task that waits to receive a message or a signal from an external source or participant before continuing the process.
What is “Send Task”?
Represents a task that sends a message or a signal to an external participant or system. i.e. customer inquiry, order processing in e-commerce, document approval in project management
What is “Manual Task”?
Represents a task that is performed manually, but without any user interaction. It may involve activities such as document handling or physical work that cannot be automated.
What is “Call Activity”?
Represents a reusable subprocess or a separate process that is invoked from within the main process. It allows for modularization and reusability of process components.
A Call Activity is a wrapper for a globally defined Task or Process reused in the current Process. i.e. customer onboarding at bank, product return in retail, incident management at IT
What are the 4 different types of events?
1-Start Event
2-Intermediate Event
3-End Event
4-Boundary Event
Definition of “Start Event”
Represents the initiation or start of a process or a subprocess. It indicates where the process flow begins and can have various triggers, such as a message received, a timer, a signal, or the start of a specific condition.
Definition of “Intermediate Event”
Represents an event that occurs within the flow of the process, interrupting or influencing the normal sequence of activities. Intermediate events can have triggers, such as a message received, a timer, a signal, a specific condition, or the completion of a task.
Definition of “End Event”
Represents the completion or termination of a process or a subprocess. It indicates where the process flow ends and can have triggers, such as a message sent, a specific condition, or the completion of a task.
Definition of “Boundary Event”
Represents an event that is attached to a specific activity and interrupts or influences the normal flow of that activity. Boundary events are used to handle exceptions or timeouts related to the activity they are attached to.
What are the “Activities” in BPMN 2.0? (4)
Task, Transaction, Event Sub-Process, Call Activity
What is a “Transaction”?
A Transaction is a set of activities that logically belong together; it might follow a specified transaction protocol.
What is a “Event Sub-Process”?
An Event Sub-Process is placed into a Process or Sub-Process. It is activated when its start event gets triggered and can interrupt the higher-level process context or run in parallel (non-interrupting) depending on the start event.
What are 6 activity markers?
Sub-Process Marker
Loop Marker
Parallel MI Marker
Sequential MI Marker
Ad Hoc Marker
Compensation Marker
What is a “Default Flow”?
Is the default branch to be chosen if all other conditions evaluate to false.
What is a “Conditional Flow”?
It has a condition assigned that defines whether or not the flow is used.
What is a “Conversation”? (Hexagone Shape - Regular Borders)
A Conversation defines a set of logically related message exchanges. When marked with a “+” symbol it indicates a Sub-Conversation, a compound conversation element.
What is a “Call Conversation”? (Hexagone Shape - Bold Borders)
Call Conversation is a wrapper for a globally defined Conversation or Sub-Conversation. A call to a Sub-conversation is marked with a “+” symbol.
In the swimlanes, “Pools (Participants) and Lanes” are representing …
Responsibilities for activities in a process. A pool or a lane can be an organization, a role, or a system. Lanes subdivide pools or other lanes hierarchically.
What is a “Choreography Task”?
A Choreography Task represents an Interaction (Message Exchange) between two Participants. White is the initiator and gray is the receiver. It is used to show the sequence of specific processes and give a bird’s eye view of a process showing the interactions between participants and entities. Mostly used for B2B processes.
What does a “Sub-Choreography” contain?
A Sub-Choreography contains a refined choreography with several Interactions.
What is a “Call Choreography”?
A Call Choreography is a wrapper for a globally defined Choreography Task or Sub-Choreography. A call to a Sub-Choreography is marked with a symbol.
What does an ad-hoc task do?
In BPMN, the ad-hoc task marker is a symbol or notation that can be applied to a User Task or a Sub-Process. It indicates that the associated task or sub-process can be performed in an ad-hoc or non-linear manner, allowing for flexibility in the order and sequence of activities.
When the ad-hoc task marker is applied to a User Task, it signifies that the tasks within that User Task can be performed in any order or dynamically determined by the performer. It enables a more flexible and unstructured execution of the tasks, where the performer can choose which tasks to execute and in what sequence.
What is a “Collection Data Object”? (Data object with three parallel vertical lines at the lower boundary)
A Collection Data Object represents a collection of information, e.g., a list of order
items.
What is a “Data Input Object”?
A Data Input is an external input for the entire process.A kind of input parameter.
What is a “Data Output Object”?
A Data Output is the data result of the entire process. A kind of output parameter.
What is a “Data Association Object”?
A Data Association is used to associate data elements to Activities, Processes and Global
Tasks.
What is “Data Store Object”?
A Data Store is a place where the process can read or write data, e.g., a database or a filing cabinet. It persists beyond the lifetime of the process instance.
What are the high-level classification of events?
Start, Intermediate, End
How many types does an “Untyped Event” have?
3 types:
1-Start / Standard
2-Intermediate / Throwing
3-End / Standard
How many types “Message Event” has?
8 types:
1-Start / Standard
2-Start / Event Sub-Process Interrupting
3-Start / Event Sub-Process Non-Interrupting
4-Intermediate / Catching
5-Intermediate / Boundary Interrupting
6-Intermediate / Boundary Non-Interrupting
7-Intermediate / Throwing
8-End / Standard
How many types “Timer Event” has?
6 types:
1-Start / Standard
2-Start / Event Sub-Process Interrupting
3-Start / Event Sub-Process Non-Interrupting
4-Intermediate / Catching
5-Intermediate / Boundary Interrupting
6-Intermediate / Boundary Non-Interrupting
How many types “Escalation Event” has?
6 types:
1-Start / Event Sub-Process Interrupting
2-Start / Event Sub-Process Non-Interrupting
3-Intermediate / Boundary Interrupting
4-Intermediate / Boundary Non-Interrupting
5-Intermediate / Throwing
6-End / Standard
How many types “Conditional Event” has?
6 types:
1-Start / Standard
2-Start / Event Sub-Process Interrupting
3-Start / Event Sub-Process Non-Interrupting
4-Intermediate / Catching
5-Intermediate / Boundary Interrupting
6-Intermediate / Boundary Non-Interrupting
How many types “Link Event” has?
2 Types:
1-Intermediate / Catching
2-Intermediate / Throwing
How many types “Error Event” has?
3 types:
1-Start / Event Sub-Process Interrupting
2-Intermediate / Catching
3-Intermediate / Throwing
How many types “Cancel Event” has?
2 Types:
1-Intermediate / Boundary Interrupting
2-End / Standard
How many types “Compensation Event” has?
4 types:
1-Start / Event Sub-Process Interrupting
2-Intermediate / Catching
3-Intermediate / Throwing
4-End / Standard
How many types “Signal Event” has?
8 types:
1-Start / Standard
2-Start / Event Sub-Process Interrupting
3-Start / Event Sub-Process Non-Interrupting
4-Intermediate / Catching
5-Intermediate / Boundary Interrupting
6-Intermediate / Boundary Non-Interrupting
7-Intermediate / Throwing
8-End / Standard
How many types “Multiple Event” has?
8 types:
1-Start / Standard
2-Start / Event Sub-Process Interrupting
3-Start / Event Sub-Process Non-Interrupting
4-Intermediate / Catching
5-Intermediate / Boundary Interrupting
6-Intermediate / Boundary Non-Interrupting
7-Intermediate / Throwing
8-End / Standard
How many types “Parallel Event” has?
6 types:
1-Start / Standard
2-Start / Event Sub-Process Interrupting
3-Start / Event Sub-Process Non-Interrupting
4-Intermediate / Catching
5-Intermediate / Boundary Interrupting
6-Intermediate / Boundary Non-Interrupting
How many types “Termination Event” has?
1 type: End / Standard
How many Event types are available in BPMN?
13 types:
1-Untyped
2-Message
3-Timer
4-Escalation
5-Compensation
6-Signal
7-Link
8-Error
9-Cancel
10-Multiple
11-Parallel
12-Conditional
13-Termination
What is the meaning of closing “Exclusive Gateway”?
Just acts like a fork to reconnect branches > No logic.
When splitting, it routes the sequence flow to exactly one of the outgoing branches. When merging, it awaits one incoming branch to complete before triggering the outgoing flow.
A process can change due to …
Growth, Change in technology, etc.
What is the meaning of “Parallel Gateway” (Opening)
No decision making > All outcoming paths will be taken - Token will be cloned
When used to split the sequence flow, all outgoing branches are activated simultaneously. When merging parallel branches it waits for all incoming branches to complete before triggering the outgoing flow.
What is the meaning of “Parallel Gateway” (Closing)
To collect all the tokens and merge all of them into one > Waits for all the tokens
What are the types of Gateway? (7)
1-Exclusive
2-Parallel
3-Inclusive
4-Event Based
5-Complex
6-Exclusive Event Based
7-Parallel Event Based
What is the meaning of “Inclusive Gateway”? (Opening)
When splitting, one or more branches are activated. All active incoming branches must complete before merging - The circle inside resembles OR
What is the meaning of “Inclusive Gateway”? (Closing)
Waits for all active inputs as it is informed about all preceding token flows.
What is the meaning of “Event Based Gateway”?
Is always followed by catching events or receive tasks. Sequence flow is routed to the subsequent event/task which happens first.
What is the meaning of “Complex Gateway”?
Complex merging and branching behavior that is not captured by other gateways.
What is the meaning of “Exclusive Event-based Gateway
(instantiate)”?
Each occurrence of a subsequent event starts a new process instance.
What is the meaning of “Parallel Event-based Gateway
(instantiate)”?
The occurrence of all subsequent events starts a new process instance.
What is a “Collapsed Pool”?
Does not show the process flow > Represents external process participants
What is a “Message Event”?
Incoming or outgoing messages. Could be used for sending/receiving goods, money etc.
A catching intermediate event defines …..
Waiting point
A plain intermediate event defines …..
A Milestone
What does a “Timer Event” represent?
Represents a time or a period of time when a trigger will be activated
What does a “Conditional Event” represent?
An event that is triggered if a given condition is evaluated true - A waiting point till the time the condition is satisfied
What type are all boundary events? Catching/Throwing/Both
ONLY catching
What are 4 characteristics of “Event Based Gateways”?
1-No decision
2-Only one output
3-Always followed by one/multiple CATCHING event (We suppose they will not happen simultaneously)
4-The process will wait till one of the events occur
What is “Process Success Path” (Happy Path)?
The path in which all the steps will be taken successfully.
What “Link Event” is used for?
Link event only appears at INTERMEDIARY level > Used to divide a process into two or more processes. Link is not supposed to be used to connect a follow-up process. Like: Audit accomplishment in finance to be linked to report to EXCO and archive the documents, Order fulfillment to be linked to update inventory and logistics
What a “Cancel Event” used for?
It is used to roll back a transaction in case it is cancelled
How we can distinguish between “Interrupting” and “Non-Interrupting” events?
Interrupting events have “Solid” line at their border, whereas “Non-Interrupting” events have “Dashed” line.
What “Escalation” event is used for?
To communicate between process and sub-process > Like delayed order processing notification, IT support ticket resolution needs intervention of the manager, medical emergency in the hospital when the intervention of a specialized doctor is needed etc.
What is “Signal Event” used for?
To broadcast or catch signals - used when there is no specific audience - Like: new product lunch, safety incident at plant, system wide software update etc.
What is “Compensation Event” used for?
As the name implies, to compensate - like when finance stops a delivery due to bad credit of a customer, the concerned compensation throwing event is set off and the sales order will be canceled after the corresponding compensation catching event is triggered. Like: Order cancellation in E-commerce, reversing a bank transaction, rescheduling a project meeting
