Basic Concepts to Build BizAgi Solutions

Diagraming the process using BPMN 1

To represent the beginning of this process you must use the start event.

Figure 1

The start events indicate when a process begins. In BizAgi every process must have
a start event, regardless of whether they are referring to a process or a sub-process.
This shape should appear just once per process, although a process can be launched
for multiple reasons. See Figure 1.

Once the process starts, the petitioner user should enter the information
about the travel request which will be represented by a user task. A task is
represented by a rounded rectangle and indicates that it is an activity
performed by a person or user. See Figure 2.

Figure 2

In BizAgi user tasks are represented by a screen in the Web application and have some
properties such as associated form, duration, cost, assignment rules, alarms and events or
actions, which can be executed on enter, on save or on
exit from the activity.
After the travel request has been registered, the
immediate boss must review the request and take a
decision: to approve, reject or request modifications.
This task will also be represented by a user task,
Approve Travel Request. See Figure 3.

Figure 3

We use sequence flows to represent the sequence of different

shapes in the diagram. See Figure 4.
Figure 4

Depending on the decision of the immediate boss, the process can take one of three paths: if
the request is approved, if it requires modification or it is completely rejected. This decision
will be represented by an exclusive gateway as a divergence
shape. See Figure 5.
Gateways are used to control the divergence or convergence of
multiple sequence flows. These are represented by diamond
shapes and the icons contained within indicate the type of flow
control behavior.
Figure 5

An Exclusive Gateway as an element of divergence and represents

a point in the process where only one of many routes can be
chosen.

The Exclusive Gateway based on process data indicates that the decision will be taken after
evaluating a business condition. It should be taken into account that the information evaluated

Abbreviation for Business Process Management Notation. For further information

about BPMN, refer to http://www.bpmn.org/
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in the business condition should be completed in some step before arriving at the gateway
because the gateway will only evaluate the business condition.
Therefore, in the Travel Request Process the possible paths would be (Figure 7):

If the request is rejected, the employee will be notified by e-mail with the reasons. To
represent this, we will use a script task.
A script task executes a script. We use these activities to represent the
notifications in BizAgi. See Figure 6.

Figure 6

If the request needs modifications, it will be returned to the petitioner to make the
adjustments.

Figure 7

If the request is approved, the request will continue with booking and currency purchase
when it is required.

Different activities will be performed once the request has been approved depending on its
characteristics. It is possible that the request includes buying flight tickets, booking a hotel
and/or currency purchase. It is important to note that a request may require all activities to be
carried out, some activities or none. Therefore, we will use an Inclusive Gateway (Figure 8).
An Inclusive Gateway used as divergence element indicates
that one or more paths can be enabled. It means that this
gateway is a multiple selection or a point in the process in
which several alternatives are available and one or more of
them can be taken. This decision is based on process data; it
means that once the process reaches an inclusive gateway, the
values should be known in order to evaluate each business
condition.
The possible paths after this inclusive gateway are:

If the request requires flight tickets, the

administrative area will make the reservation and the
petitioner will have the opportunity of verifying them to
approve the purchase or to ask some modifications. We will
Figure 8
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represent the booking with a user task and the decision of approving the itinerary with an
exclusive gateway. Once the employee has approved the bookings, the tickets will be
bought (represented by a user task) and will be sent to the petitioner by e-mail (modeled
as a script task). See Figure 9.

Figure 9

If the request asks for an hotel reservation, the administrative area will book a hotel,
represented by a user task, and then the petitioner will be notified by e-mail with the
reservation details. We will represent this notification by a script task.

Figure 10

If the request needs currency purchase, an e-mail will be sent to the accountant auxiliary
who is the person assigned to buy foreign currencies. We model this notification with a
script task.

Figure 11

It is possible that the request does not require any reservation or currency purchase.

Once the necessary activities have been performed, reservations and currency purchase, the
travel advance will be given to the petitioner. You should note that every administrative
activity related to booking and currency purchase must have finished before giving this
advance; therefore, we need to synchronize these paths with an inclusive gateway as a
convergence element. See Figure 13.
An Inclusive Gateway as a convergence element is used as merge when one or more paths must
be synchronized depending on the upstream tokens of the matching Inclusive Gateway, that is
to say, you have to wait for all the branches to have been activated in an Inclusive Gateway
(divergence element) to be able to carry on with the process.

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Figure 13

Additionally, at any moment the travel request can be cancelled

by the petitioner. See Figure 12. To diagram this situation, we
will use the Parallel Gateway (Figure 14) as a divergence
element to enable both the path related to the attention of the
travel request and the path associated with the cancellation. We
will model this cancellation as an Intermediate Event (Figure
15).
Figure 12

Figure 14

Figure 15

A Parallel Gateway as a divergence element is

used to generate many concurrent or parallel
routes. Therefore, it is a point in the flow where there are many activities that
can be executed simultaneously or in any order, which indicates that all
sequence flows or paths that exit this gateway will always be enabled. See
Figure 14.

An Intermediate Event represents something that occurs or may occur during

the course of a process. These events help us to represent situations which
can occur at any moment and do not depend on the user. See Figure 15.

In BizAgi, Intermediate Events are represented by a screen in the Web application and the only
difference with the user tasks is that they never expire. These events help us to represent
business situations, which can or cannot occur in a case, such as a case cancellation. See Figure
16.

Figure 16
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The process must be finished once the advance is given to the petitioner or when the process is
cancelled. In the latter case, the people involved will be notified and the process will be
terminated, regardless of its state. To represent this kind of end, we use the Terminate End
Event.

Figure 17

Terminate End Event indicates that the process is terminated immediately. It

means that when any path of the process diagram reaches this shape, the
process will finish, no matter how many pending paths there are in flow. See
Figure 17.

Additionally, the process is contained in a pool which can be divided into lanes, sub-partitions
within a pool. Lanes represent a role or organizational area in the process and are represented
horizontally. Hence, these lanes indicate graphically which activities are done for each role or
organizational area in the process. In BizAgi every shape must be in a lane and, therefore, any
process must have a lane.
If there are activities which can be performed by different functional areas, we only diagram
one activity related to one lane and then we will configure the assignment rules to indicate
which funtional areas will perform it.
Finally, BizAgi has another shape, which represents general states in a process. This shape is
known as a phase and is a vertical sub-partition of the process. It is important to note that every
shape must be in a phase, therefore, every process must have at least one phase.

For further information about Process Modeling, please refer to:

http://wiki.bizagi.com/es/index.php?title=Modeling_the_Process

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Figure 18

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Creating the process in BizAgi Studio

BizAgi offers a Process Modeler, based on BPMN standards, to model any process. This modeler
permits an easy and agile process modeling no matter how complex the process.
It is important to review the way in which we group the processes in BizAgi before starting.

Figure 19

When we create a process in BizAgi, it is necessary to indicate the application to which the
process will belong. In BizAgi an application is a set of processes which have common
information and objectives.
The Travel Request is an administrative process which belongs to the Internal Services
Application. This application contains every process associated with employees such as
Vacation Request, Office Supply Request, etc.; therefore, the client of these processes is every
employee in the organization. This set of process has a common objective which is to offer
different services to the employees.
To start modeling the process in BizAgi Studio click here.

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