BPMN Pools and relationships

[tnotland]

Dear all,

In my diagram I have added a BPMN pool and to this pool I have added BPMN Activities. In the Hierarchy browser I can see the relationships like this: "<pool> owns <activity>".

BUT, does anyone know how I can use the Relationship Matrix to identify "the contents" of the pool (or a lane for that matter)?

Thanks!

Tore

[dbax]

I do not know if you can do that in Relationship Matrix, however, I usually resort to Element List for such task. Right-click package in Project Browser and from the context menu choose Show Element List. The tree structure will show you every container (in your case <<pool>> is what you're interested) with corresponding elements it contains.
I hope this helps.

Bax

[tnotland]

Thanks! I had not noticed the Element List functionality :-)

However; I don't think it is what I need :-( My problem is that I am trying to stick to the BPMN notation as far as possible. And I need something to represent actors/departments/systems and the like. And as far as I know pools and lanes are the only options I have if I want to stick to the notation.

So if I want to have a "quick and easy" way to identify what an actor does, or a system is capable of doing, then this could be done if I found a way to easily list the contents of all pools/lanes. E.g. I would then create a profile in the matrix identifying pools as source types, activities as target types, and something like "owns" as the relationship (link type) between the two.

Maybe I need to resort to SQL?  :-/

[igh08191]

Hi Tore,

  You must create a participant, and assign it to the pool through the tagged value "Participant". Next, in the relationship matrix you can set the activities as source and participants as target.

  Hope it helps.

  Ivan

[tnotland]

Thanks Ivan. I could do that, but then I would introduce Participant as a new (non-BPMN) element. And I want to avoid this as far as possible.

What I have done is to add the elements I need into the pool, and then use the Association-relationship between these elements and the pool. I can then use the relationship matrix to see what belongs in which pool  

The downside of this is that I need to hide these relationships so that it doesn't clutter the diagram  

Another thing worth noting is that even if I choose the BPMN-relationship "Association", it is added to the model as a "Control flow"!! I guess this is a bug or something in EA  

[«Midnight»]

Or not.

IIRC BPMN only recognizes flows. The default is control flow.

[tnotland]

Well.... There is such a thing as an Association in BPMN. From the BPMN Spesification: "An Association is used to associate information and Artifacts with Flow Objects."

I guess I am stretching it a bit when I use Association to connect Flow Objects (such as an Activity) with a Pool, but it serves my purpose...

The fact that the EA GUI allows me to use all 3 kinds of BPMN connectors (Sequence, Message and Association) should mean that these connectors/relationships should be addressed as such. Not automatically converted to something called Control Flow! In fact, according to the BPMN spec this is not even a concept in BPMN:
"BPMN does not use the term “Control Flow” when referring the lines represented by Sequence Flow or Message Flow. The start of an activity is “controlled” not only by Sequence Flow (the order of activities), but also by Message Flow (a message arriving), as well as other process factors, such as scheduled resources. Artifacts can be Associated with activities to show some of these other factors."

[tnotland]

And one more thing... :-)

I just realised that I am able to create an Association by using the Matrix, choosing to view Relationship Type=Association, and then adding the relationship directly in the matrix. The Association relationship then shows up just fine in the diagram :-)

I have NOT been able to add such an Association directly in the diagram. EA then converts this to a "ControlFlow" :-(

[«Midnight»]

Yeah, that's strange.