Messages

1

Suggestions and Requests / Re: "Method and Style" BPMN Functionality

« on: October 20, 2014, 08:25:32 pm »

Thanks very much for the replies.

I'm using build 1112.

Regarding process refs: as far as I was aware process refs used to not affect diagram behaviour, their effect only became relevant for executable BPMN  (That's based on a very quick question to a DT consultant, rather than rigorous testing, so I could easily be incorrect).

From the version 1111 build notes there has been fuctionality added to process refs "•Elements created inside Pools referencing a Process are now created directly inside the Process", but I'm not certain whether that's going to directly help me.

2

Suggestions and Requests / "Method and Style" BPMN Functionality

« on: October 16, 2014, 04:18:30 am »

Here at my organisation we're greatly appreciating the added BPMN functionality of recent EA builds, but they're something of a mixed blessing.

As an organisation we base our BPMN modelling on Bruce Silver's "Method and Style" approach, which presents us with some difficulties as Sparx EA is our tool of choice.  Under Silver's style rules, a white box pool only ever represents a top level process, and is exactly equivalent to it.  White box pools can never represent participants, although black box pools often do.

Prior to build 1110 we were forced to represent 'collapsed' business processes in collaboration diagrams as a business process element wrapped inside the corresponding pool, as messaging to 'naked' business process elements caused EA to hang.  This is now resolved, but we're finding that adding a business process element to a collaboration diagram relocates the process to that diagram's package in the project browser, which isn't ideal.

We've experimented with not using business process elements at all, and always representing a top level process as a pool.  Unfortunately it's not possible to associate a decomposition diagram with a pool, so this prevents us drilling down.  We're also concerned as to how this approach might handle the export to XML.

Fundamentally we're looking for a way to represent each individual level one process as either a pool or a business process element depending on the diagram it appears in.  

Our second main issue is that all global elements now appear to be considered as their own pool, irrespective of whether they're placed inside a pool or not.  This means it's impossible to run sequence flows into or out of global tasks and subprocesses.  I'm not entirely certain if this is a bug or a feature.  Under the BPMN specification and Silver's style rules, sequence flows to a reusable task/subprocess are permitted.

We're not happy representing every called element with a service task messaging out to the called activity/subprocess, because many of our reusable subprocesses have a potential duration of days or weeks, and thus aren't suitable to be represented by a service task.

Any suggestions or upcoming functionality that might help with these issues would be very greatly appreciated.

3

General Board / Re: Hyperlinking to a Diagram from a Send Element

« on: October 16, 2014, 01:01:04 am »

Thanks both for your suggestions, much appreciated.

4

General Board / Hyperlinking to a Diagram from a Send Element

« on: September 23, 2014, 08:50:07 pm »

Good morning,

I'm trying to directly hyperlink to a diagram from an element type that doesn't allow decomposition diagrams as an option.  Is there any other way to get a link to a diagram that opens with a single click?

I'm using Sparx 11.0.1107 with the BPMN MDG.

Our users are having trouble following the way BPMN Signals link across diagrams, so I've created some additional diagrams to highlight which signals in different processes trigger one another.  I want to make the appropriate additional diagram open when a user double clicks the signal event, exactly as a decomposition diagram would for those elements that permit decomposition diagrams.

As the BPMN MDG represents BPMN Signal Events as UML Send/Receive Elements, the option for a decomposition diagram isn't supported for that element type.

I'm looking for a solution where the link is integral to the Signal element (as opposed to putting transparent hyperlink objects on top of them, for example) as I'm going to be reusing the Signal elements many times.  

Any suggestions will be gratefully received.

Regards,

George

5

Bugs and Issues / Re: BPMN Pool 'Ownership' of Global and Call Globa

« on: November 10, 2014, 09:12:32 pm »

Thanks MMA, it sounds like your interpretation of the spec matches mine.  I'll put in a bug report.

6

Bugs and Issues / BPMN Pool 'Ownership' of Global and Call Global

« on: November 06, 2014, 12:00:48 am »

Since upgrading to build 1112 I've noticed that activities are not behaving as I'd expect.

From the behaviour I'm seeing (i.e. whether sequence connections or message connections are permitted) EA is treating:

All tasks and subprocesses as belonging to their containing pool (This is what I'd expect)

All global tasks and business processes as belonging to one 'global' pool.  (This isn't what I expect.  It means sequence flows between global task and/or business process objects are permitted, but messages are not.)

All 'call' activities as belonging to their own individual pool, one per call activity.  I can never get EA to permit a sequence flow into or out of any call global task/call process activity, irrespective of which pool I put it in.  Conversely, messages are permitted to anything, even if they're objects in the same pool.

My expectation is that 'call global' activities should behave like regular activities - they belong to the pool they're contained by, can sequence to other activities in that pool and can only message to anything outside the pool.  I'd expect the actual global tasks and process objects to behave like the call activities currently do - each one inherently belongs to it's own implicit pool, and can't sequence to or from anything.

Is this a lack of understanding on my part, or a bug?

Regards,

George