The BPMI Notation Working Group has announced the release of a public draft for the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN Version 1.0). The BPMN specification "provides a graphical notation for expressing business processes in a Business Process Diagram (BPD). The objective of BPMN is to support process management by both technical users and business users by providing a notation that is intuitive to business users yet able to represent complex process semantics. As an amalgamation of best practices within the business modeling community, BPMN provides a simple, standardized means of communicating process information to other business users, process implementers, customers, and suppliers. BPMN 1.0 allows different XML-based process languages, e.g., Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS v1.1) and Business Process Modeling Language (BPML v1.0), to be visualized using common elements. BPMN is a comprehensive notation and points toward the convergence of open standards for business process management by enabling practitioners to more easily exchange business process models between different business process languages using a standardized graphical notation."

Bibliographic Information

Business Process Modeling Notation. Working Draft Version 1.0. August 25, 2003. From the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI). By Stephen A. White (IBM). A work-in-progress specification produced by members of the BPMI Notation Working Group. Copyright (c) 2003, BPMI.org. 189 pages. Comments to BPMN-PublicReview@bpmi.org. Contributions of authorship and editing by: Ashish Agrawal (Intalio), Michael Anthony (International Performance Group), Assaf Arkin (Intalio), Tony Fletcher (Choreology), Steven Forgey (SeeBeyond Technology Corporation), Jean-Luc Giraud (Axway Software), George Keeling (Casewise), Brian James (Proforma), Antoine Lonjon (Mega International), Martin Owen (Popkin Software), Manfred Sturm (ITPearls AG), Steve Ball (Sterling Commerce), and Paul Vincent (Fair, Isaac & Company).

From the Version 1.0 BPMN Specification

The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) specification provides a graphical notation for expressing business processes in a Business Process Diagram (BPD). The objective of BPMN is to support process management by both technical users and business users by providing a notation that is intuitive to business users yet able to represent complex process semantics. The BPMN specification also provides a mapping between the graphics of the notation to underlying the constructs of execution languages, particularly BPEL4WS.

The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI) has developed a standard Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). The primary goal of BPMN is to provide a notation that is readily understandable by all business users, from the business analysts that create the initial drafts of the processes, to the technical developers responsible for implementing the technology that will perform those processes, and finally, to the business people who will manage and monitor those processes. Thus, BPMN creates a standardized bridge for the gap between the business process design and process implementation.

Another goal, but no less important, is to ensure that XML languages designed for the execution of business processes, such as BPEL4WS (Business Process Execution Language for Web Services), can be visualized with a common notation.

This specification defines the notation and semantics of a Business Process Diagram (BPD) and represents the amalgamation of best practices within the business modeling community. The intent of BPMN is to standardize a business process modeling notation in the face of many different modeling notations and viewpoints. In doing so, BPMN will provide a simple means of communicating process information to other business users, process implementers, customers, and suppliers. The membership of the BPMI Notation Working Group has brought forth expertise and experience with the many existing notations and has sought consolidate the best ideas from these divergent notations into a single standard notation. Examples of other notations or methodologies that were reviewed are UML Activity Diagram, UML EDOC Business Processes, IDEF, ebXML BPSS, Activity-Decision Flow (ADF) Diagram, RosettaNet, LOVeM, and Event-Process Chains (EPCs).

The BPMN specification defines a mapping from BPMN to BPEL4WS and is comprised of the following topics:

• BPMN Overview provides an introduction to BPMN, its requirements, and discusses the range of modeling purposes that BPMN can convey.
• Business Process Diagrams provides a summary of the BPMN graphical elements and their relationships.
• Business Process Diagram Graphical Objects details the graphical representation and the semantics of the behavior of BPMN Diagram elements.
• Connecting Objects defines the graphical objects used to connect two objects together (i.e., the connecting lines of the Diagram) and how flow progresses through a Process (i.e., through a straight sequence or through the creation of parallel or alternative paths).
• BPMN by Example provides a walkthrough of a sample Process using BPMN.
• Mapping to XML Languages provides the formal mechanism for converting a BPMN Diagram to a BPEL4WS document.
• References provides a list of normative and non-normative references.
• Open Issues provides a list of issues that will affect the future of the BPMN specification.
• Appendix A: E-Mail Voting Process BPEL4WS provides a full sample of BPEL4WS code based on the example business process described in the 'BPMN by Example' section.
• Appendix B: Glossary presents an alphabetical index of terms that are relevant to practitioners of BPMN.

From the Announcement

The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) today announced the release of the public draft for the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN 1.0) providing a readily understandable, royalty-free notation designed for both business process design and business process implementation. As an amalgamation of best practices within the business modeling community, BPMN provides a simple, standardized means of communicating process information to other business users, process implementers, customers, and suppliers.

In achieving this primary objective, BPMN 1.0 also allows different XML-based process languages, e.g., Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS v1.1) and Business Process Modeling Language (BPML v1.0), to be visualized using common elements. BPMN is a comprehensive notation and points toward the convergence of open standards for business process management by enabling practitioners to more easily exchange business process models between different business process languages using a standardized graphical notation.

"BPMN will provide businesses with the capability of understanding their internal business procedures in a graphical notation and will give organizations the ability to communicate these procedures in a standard manner," said Stephen White, chair of the BPMN Working Group. "BPMN follows the tradition of flowcharting and swimlane notations for readability, yet still provides the mapping to the executable constructs as defined in BPEL4WS. By doing so, BPMN fills a technical gap between the format of the initial design of business processes and the format of the languages that will execute these business processes. This creates an environment where business people will be more involved in developing, managing, and monitoring IT-intensive business processes."

"Semantic differences between leading process modeling tools and arbitrary differences in visual notation have hindered the take up of process management in the marketplace," says Howard Smith, co-chair of BPMI.org and CTO for Computer Sciences Corporation Europe. "Process and performance management is the majority of all work. The BPMN proposal points toward a time when business people will readily exchange processes as easily as they do word processing documents and spreadsheets today."

About BPMI.org Specifications

"On the back-end, technology integration standards such as XML Schema, SOAP, and J2EE enable the convergence of legacy infrastructures toward process-oriented enterprise computing. On the front-end, emerging protocols such as ebXML, RosettaNet, and BizTalk support the process-level collaboration among business partners.

BPMI.org leverages those converging trends by developing technologies that empower companies of all sizes, across all industries, to develop and operate business processes that span multiple applications and business partners, behind the firewall and over the Internet.

BPMI.org defines open specifications, such as the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML), and the Business Process Query Language (BPQL), that will enable the standards-based management of e-Business processes with forthcoming Business Process Management Systems (BPMS), in much the same way SQL enabled the standards-based management of business data with off-the-shelf Database Management Systems (DBMS).

BPMI.org considers an e-Business process conducted among two business partners as made of three parts: a Public Interface and two Private Implementations (one for each partner). The Public Interface is common to the partners and is supported by protocols such as ebXML, RosettaNet, and BizTalk. The Private Implementations are specific to every partner and are described in any executable language. BPML is one such language.

Once developed, the Private Implementation of an e-Business process must be deployed on a platform that will actually execute it. For this purpose, BPMI.org defines BPQL, a standard management interface for the deployment and execution of e-Business processes. Furthermore, BPQL relies on UDDI in order to provide a standard way to register, advertise, and discover the Public Interfaces of e-Business processes..." [adapted from the Overview]

About BPMI.org

"BPMI.org (the Business Process Management Initiative) is a non-profit corporation that empowers companies of all sizes, across all industries, to develop and operate business processes that span multiple applications and business partners, behind the firewall and over the Internet. The Initiative's mission is to promote and develop the use of Business Process Management (BPM) through the establishment of standards for process design, deployment, execution, maintenance, and optimization.

BPMI.org develops open specifications, assists IT vendors in marketing their implementations, and supports businesses in their use of business process management technologies. Currently comprising over 80 members, membership is open to all companies, non-profit organizations, and individuals."