BPMN: Connecting Objects, Pools, Swimlanes and Artifacts

After having reviewed the general concept of BPMN and the various types of events, today, we are going to review connecting objects, pools, swimlanes and artifacts.

Connecting Objects:

These objects show some form of relationship between gateways, events, artifacts or just additional information. There are three types of connecting objects used:

Sequence Flow

This shows the sequence in which activities need to be performed. This can be shown as a straight line with an arrow. This might show a conditional flow or default flow.

Message Flow:

This type of object depicts the flow across pools or organization boundaries such as departments. It should not connect events or activities within a pool. It is represented by a dashed line with a circle at one end and an unfilled arrow head at the other end.

Association

This object is shown as a dotted line without any arrow head or circle. This can be used to associate an event, activity or gateway to an artifact.

Pools and Swimlanes

A pool represents a major group of participants in a process. A different pool might be a different company, department, etc, but might still be involved in the process. Swimlanes within a pool show the activities and flow for a certain role or participants, defining who is accountable for what action within the process. The swimlane can even be a system and need not necessarily be a department, role, etc.

Artifacts

Any additional information that a participant should read is shown in the form of an artifacts in the diagram. There are three types of artifacts.

1. Data Object : These show what data is necessary for an activity. This can be further divided into data store which provides a source for information to be collected or inserted after a set of activities such that the data will persist beyond the end of the process. Data collection can be further divided into Data input or data output wherein data requirements are captured as data Inputs while data that is produced is captured as data output.
2. Group: This shows a logical grouping of activities but doesn't change the diagram's flow. This just makes the product easier to understand.
3. Annotation: This provides further description or detail to a specific part of the diagram.

In the next article, we will look at how to draw a BPMN.