Semantic Annotation for Process Models: - Department of Computer ...

38 CHAPTER 3. STATE OF THE ART
modeling language for execution languages, such as BPEL4WS [58] and BPML [11].
The BPMN specification provides a mapping between the graphics of the notation and
the constructs of those formal languages. BPMN intends to provide businesses with
the capability of understanding their internal business procedures in graphical notations
and give organizations the ability to communicate these procedures in a standard
manner.
BPMN is initiated as a standard process modeling language for conventional business,
B2B and services process modeling. Hence BPMN has the capabilities of handling
B2B business process concepts, such as public and private processes and choreograhies,
as well as advanced modeling concepts, such as exception handling and transaction compensation
in addition to the traditional business process notations [12]. Private business
processes are those internal processes to a organization and they are traditional business
processes or workflows. Public processes are also called abstract processes or interface
processes according to the BPMI terminology. They represents the interactions between
a private business process and another process or participant. Choreographies represents
collaboration processes. A collaboration process depicts a sequence of activities
that represent the messages being sent between the entries involved.
According to the BPMI terminology, the modeling constructs are the elements with
corresponding notations. The main elements of BPMN Version 1.0 [12] are event, task,
process/sub-process, sequence flow, message flow, pool, lanes, data object, fork (ANDsplit),
join (AND-join), decision/branching point (OR-split), merging (OR-join), looping,
etc. We refer those elements to the perspectives in the BPM systems paradigm. A
sub-process is a compound activity included within a process. The collapsed/expanded
sub-process can hide and show the details of the sub-process. Hereby, the structural perspective
can be represented by BPMN through such a mechanism. Respectively, task,
process/sub-process are elements for the operational/functional perspective. Tasks and
processes are controlled through event, sequence flow, fork, join, decision, merging and
looping. Resource can be represented by data object. Organizations are usually represented
by lanes in the pool. The data transaction is specified through message flow
together with data object.
The details of the BPMN specifications from BPMI can refer Appendix A. The
names and the notations of the BPMN elements used in this section are from the
standard proposal. When a modeling tool implements a certain modeling language
(e.g. BPMN), the names and the notations might be slightly changed to adjust the tool
implementation. For example, task, process/subprocess are implemented as "Logical
Process" in an enterprise modeling tool Metis [183].
3.1.6 Categorizing the modeling constructs of process modeling languages
The investigation of existing process modeling languages has shown the diversity of
modeling constructs. The modeling constructs of the process modeling languages is categorized
in Table 3.1 according to the six process perspectives defined in the paradigm
of BPM systems.