BPMN BusinessProcess looks like UML Element

[amidala24]

Hi,

I upgraded to EA: 7.5.847 and now have BPMN 1.0 and BPMN 1.1 available. When selecting a Business Process however it is round (like UML Element) and has the mathematical infinite sign (instead of +). I tried to select an Activity and use one of the two Stereotypes Business Process, both look like UML Elements. The next thing I tried now was to create a new element with Settings -> UML and I then inserted a script that draws a BPMN Element with a + and named it Business Process. I have now three stereotypes BusinessProcess, however all look like UML Elements (the Script is correct, if I name the element BusinessProcesses, it works).

The mistake is reproducable on another PC also using EA 7.5.847, however on a third PC I installed EA: 7.1 and there it works. Business Process looks like BPMN Element.

What can I do to get a BPMN Business Process?

Thanks

[KP]

When selecting a Business Process however it is round (like UML Element) and has the mathematical infinite sign (instead of +).

The symbol is supposed to be three links of a chain, indicating it has a linked diagram. However...

Our implementation of BPMN is a UML profile. If you look in the BPMN spec, there are properties for every element type that we have implemented as tagged values applied by stereotypes. The problem with that was that the BPMN process diagram has a number of extra properties, but UML (and EA) diagrams are not elements and you cannot hang tagged values on them. To get around this, we created a BusinessProcess element to own a BPMN process diagram and its tagged values. That's it's only intended use. Try to think of the BusinessProcess as nothing but a diagram holder.

If you want an Activity with the "cross-in-a-box" notation indicating it has a child diagram, right-click a BPMN Activity and select "Advanced > Make Composite".

HTH

[Paolo F Cantoni]

... but UML (and EA) diagrams are not elements and you cannot hang tagged values on them.  ...

My reading of the UML specs strongly suggests that the Activity diagam is an exception to this (both in UML and EA).  I've noted before that EA supports dragging an activity diagram onto another diagram and an activity element will be created.

Paolo

[Geert Bellekens]

Paolo,

Can you explain where you found that in the UML specs?
As far as I understand Diagrams hardly exist in the UML metamodel, and they certainly don't inherit from Element.

Geert

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Paolo,

Can you explain where you found that in the UML specs?
As far as I understand Diagrams hardly exist in the UML metamodel, and they certainly don't inherit from Element.

Geert

I'm afraid it would take some effort as it was a number of years ago.  I don't have the time right now, I'm too busy reporting bugs in EA .

You're right in what you say, but it was part of UML's (rare) self-inconsistencies.

IRC - the specs say that the set of child behavioural elements (UML elements where both vertexes and arcs are elements - unlike in EA) define the composite activity.  The only way to express that set is in an Activity diagram!  Ergo, the diagram is an activity itself.

As I said, EA supports this view through its UI.

That's the best I can do for now.

HTH,
Paolo

[Geert Bellekens]

IRC - the specs say that the set of child behavioural elements (UML elements where both vertexes and arcs are elements - unlike in EA) define the composite activity.  The only way to express that set is in an Activity diagram!  Ergo, the diagram is an activity itself.

Well, I'm not convinced.
In my view (and I believe that is the sam as the UML authors) Diagrams do not contain any information, they just visualize information that is alrady in the model. Therefore we should be able to delete all diagrams from a model, and not loose any information at all. (of course the model would not be very usefull for a human, but a computer should have no problems interpreting it)
In the case of the Activity and it's child behavioural elements, isn't it so that they are child elements only because they are defined under the parent Activity?
I agree that the only sensible way to define those children is to draw then on a Diagram, but I can image a tool capable of defining those without the need of a diagram.

Geert

[amidala24]

Hi KP,

A BPMN Activity with a cross-in-a-box is no problem, however, it should have the stereotype 'BusinessProcess' and that doesn't work. When I create a Stereotype BusinessProcess and select this stereotype within an Activity, it automatically changes to a UML like Business Process.

Regarding the Business Process Element, I don't unterstand why it had a cross-in-the-box in EA version 7.1 and links of a chain in version 7.5. At the moment we are thinking of downgrading our EAs,  however, then we would only have BPMN 1.0 and not BPMN 1.1.

Thanks,
Christine

[Paolo F Cantoni]

...
In the case of the Activity and it's child behavioural elements, isn't it so that they are child elements only because they are defined under the parent Activity?
....

No... Certainly not within EA - nor any modelling tool I've come across.  Nor, I would submit, from first principles...

And that's where I believe the quandary is!

Certainly, by default, the child elements would be placed under the parent, but that's only a convenience.

Since the same activity can be part of more than one parent, there can't be a strict hierarchy at all times...

Paolo

[Geert Bellekens]

Ok, I see what you mean, the term "Child" elements put me of there.
You mean that within the behaviour specification of an Activity there can be calls to activities defined somewhere else (not necesarrily underneatch the "Parent" activity).
Still I think we can express the whole behaviour of an Activity (including calls to other actitivies) without the need of a diagram.

But, this is getting a bit of an Academic discussion I'm afraid.  

Geert

[Frank Horn]

I don't think this is purely academic. What we are doing for code generation is this: export our model to XMI 2.1 and then apply a series of xsl transformation to produce C# code.

We export without diagrams, relying only on model information. We never tried it with activities, but with state machines we refrain from using concurrent state regions because EA stores the information which state belongs to which region only in diagrams (at least in XMI 2.1), and we don't wont to start parsing this.

[Geert Bellekens]

I see.
Ok lets continue this discussion, but in a seperate topic. (this has nothing to do anymore with the original issue of the appearance of BPMN Business Processes.)
I've created one in UML Process:
http://www.sparxsystems.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1251365351

Geert

[Tarja]

Hi Amidala and Christine,

Have you found the answer for the process symbol yet?
The EA administrator answered but did you get the idea?

I try to clarify. BPMN is really originally an add-in, so you cannot use the normal properties as with UML. The business process symbol you see in the toolbox is meant to describe a very high-level process that could be shown in a process map. It is not really part of BPMN standard at all but an extension of it.

The "plus sign" subprocess you can find from EA, but it is not a separate tool but an attribute of an BPMN activity. To define these attributes (like subprocess, loop, triggers etc.) you have to define them into the element's Tagged values.

The Tagged values you get when you select from main menu View -> Tagged Values. Then you see in the right bottom corner a separate Tagged Values window which contains various attributes. These attributes vary according to the element you select from the diagram.

So, subprocess you get by 1. draw an activity and then 2. select Subprocess for an activity type attribute in the Tagged Values window. And voila! The plus sign appears in the activity symbol.

I have to say that originally I tumbled into this guidance by accident when I tried to learn how to create BPMN with EA. The help is not very good.

Br, Tarja

[amidala24]

Hi Tarja,

No, my questions was unfortunately not answered yet. Maybe my explanation was too confusing  

It is no problem to get a plus sign for an activity (although I didn't found a Subprocess in the TaggedValues, instead I use Advanced --> Make Composite). The problem I have is, that we developed an own approach with special stereotypes. So we use Activities and give every one a new stereotype. We have no problems with all these stereotypes except with one stereotypes, which is named "BusinessProcess". In this case we have a problem, since the stereotype is already used in the BPMN Core elements. It is now not possible to define the stereotype again and when using the BPMN Core Element we get the Link-Symbol, however, all other Activities with Stereotypes have the Plus-Sign.

Thanks,
Christine