As always we will show how BPMN diagram can be interchanged between various tools. At the end you will also see how the process can be automated. But it is not all we have in store for you

Our holiday leave BPMN diagram will be connected with DMN diagram showing the business rules governing the decisions about accepting or rejecting the employee request. We will also showcase two extensions of the BPMN standard our group prepared: BPMN i18n (BPMN Internationalization) and BPMN in Color.

As you probably expect, the former extension allows you to store translations into various languages inside the diagram. The latter allows you to exchange colors of BPMN elements (e.g. Tasks) between various tools.

Stay tuned for more updates and make sure to sign up for the event!

This year, BBC is taking place live in Florida. There are 12 conference tracks:

• Business Analysis Essentials
• Realizing Business Strategy
• Leadership & Collaboration
• Business Agility
• Data & Business Analytics
• Owning the Product
• High-Impact Techniques
• Digital Transformation
• Practitioner’s Chat
• Making Change Happen
• Cybersecurity
• Women in Tech (WiT)

There are dozens of great sessions and over 70 awesome speakers (including Roger Burlton, Jacob Feldman, Gladys Lam, Adrian Reed, Ron Ross, Dave Saboe, James Taylor, Roger Tregear, Jan Vanthienen, Hanna Wesołowska, and Angela Wick – to name just people I had a chance to read/listen to)

Learn more about BBC 2021 and register. If you plan to attend the conference use the promo code “BPMTIPSBBC” for 15% discount.

PS. You can also watch selected recordings of sessions from BBC 2019 to see how much you can learn there!

This year, for obvious reasons, BBC will be a virtual conference. It will take place on October 19-23, 2020.

You can participate in livestreams of conference sessions and workshops (recordings are also available, so you can watch everything you want) PLUS new options possible thanks to the new format of the event:
* BBC Conference Extra
* Practitioner’s Chats
* BBC People’s Choice Discussions
* Virtual Coffee Roundtables and
* BBC Beyond

With nearly 100 presenters, 18 conference tracks and 4 trails there are hundreds of possibilities for you to learn something useful and meet new people.

Learn more about BBC 2020 and register. If you plan to attend BBC 2020 the following code “BPMBBC” will give you a 15% discount.

PS. You can also watch selected recordings of sessions from BBC 2019 to see how much you can learn there!

In 2020 edition of our demo automation is back As previously this presentation will be part of Object Management Group technical meeting (during BPMN in action slot).

As you may guess this event does not take place in Orlando as it was planned, but is virtual so you can easily join us live by registering on OMG website for the event (or using direct link to GoToWebinar registration page). It takes place on Monday June 22nd 11.00 am – 12.30 pm ET.

For the first time we will be streaming the event using GoToWebinar and not Hangouts/YouTube, so keep your fingers crossed!

This year we will have 11 participating vendors: BOC Group, Camunda, Cardanit, Case Agile, Itesoft, KnowProcess, OMNITRACKER, Signavio, Software AG, Trisotech, and Viadee. 6 vendors (BOC Group, Camunda, KnowProcess, OMNITRACKER, Signavio, Trisotech) will be showing automation.

Our demo scenario will be based on a (fictive) EU Bank which documents the current state (AS-IS) processes and develops future state (TO-BE) for the recruitment. If you are using ADONIS probably you will recall those processes since they are (again ) based on ADOmoney Bank example.

Here is the overview process architecture which was not part of the interchange demo as it is not BPMN

This demo covers three processes:
a) Advertising job vacancy

b) Current (AS-IS) application process

c) Improved (TO-BE) online application process.

UPDATE:
The recording is now available on YouTube, so you can watch all the session plus Q&A.

You can also download our diagrams from Github:
https://github.com/bpmn-miwg/bpmn-miwg-demos/tree/master/2020-06-omg-technical-meeting-orlando

Below you can find few screenshots where Denis presents models used in the demo.

As you can see first model was extended a bit with Data Objects and object names were shortened (since during our demos it turned out that we don’t have time to type everything

PS. To learn more about BPMN MIWG and watch recordings of past demonstrations visit our site: http://www.omgwiki.org/bpmn-miwg/doku.php
You will also find there test cases and list of tools participating in MIWG tests.

PPS. Below you can see major points of the webinar
Meg Duncan from OMG starts the session and tells few words about Object Management Group.
Denis Gagné starts presentation at 2:56. Denis mentions 11 participating vendors and BPMN 2.0 10th anniversary.
He continues by presenting idea of model interchange (also including hidden attributes).
Afterwards our scenario is presented: EU Bank and you can see how it is split between various tools.
Please note that many things will be done in parallel since we had limited time for the demo.
Niall from Camunda starts modelling at 8:51 by creating diagram in Cawemo.
In parallel Gabriele from Cardanit starts modelling another process at 9:54.
At 10:55 Denis introduces Frank from Software AG (ARIS tool) who will start modelling third process.
At 12:05 we move to Simon from Trisotech who will be completing diagram from Niall
As Denis mentions BPMN provides a modelling standard, but each tool has own “tool smarts”.
Tim (KnowProcess) starts extending diagram from Gabriele at 13:55.
Since ARIS part is ready, now (14:54) Chris from viadee can continue.
At 16:05 you can see Benjamin from Itesoft who will extend Simon’s model.
Now at 17:20 Philipp from Signavio continues Tim’s work.
Marion from Omnitracker joins at 18:36. You can also hear Denis explaining that BPMN does not specify colors, but some tools support “BPMN in color” extension.
At 20:20 Benjamin is done and shows the first process: Recruitment (AS-IS).
At 21:20 Boris (CaseAgile with Enterprise Composer) joins the group to extend model from Cardanit in his Visio add-on.
Zbigniew from BOC Group (yes, it’s me) with ADONIS joins at 22:15 to continue Marion’s model. Denis tells more about why BPMN MIWG is needed to make sure tool vendors reach a common understanding of the specification and how do we work together. He also provides a small teaser of the upcoming automation part.
You can see overview of the Online recruitment process at 25:10.
Denis invites viewers to ask question at the end of the session.
Boris shows his full model at 27:05.
And now we are ready for the automation part (27:43)!

Let’s start with 2 conferences of BPM vendors:
1) K2 FastFWD (April 21-23 – so you can still watch the last day plus access all the sessions on demand)
https://k2fastfwd.com

2) CamundaCon Live (April 23-24)
https://www.camundacon.com/live/

Now, something for Process Mining enthusiasts:
3) Celosphere Live (April 28-30)
https://www.celonis.com/celosphere-live/

And finally event you cannot miss if you are interested in Business Rules and Decision Management:
4) DecisionCAMP (June 29-July 1)
https://decisioncamp2020.home.blog/

Do you know any more interesting online BPM conferences? Share them in comments!

BBC is a very unique conference since it supports you in a pursuit of business excellence by providing insight into topics such as Digital Innovation, Business Analysis, Business Process Management and Business Architecture, Business Decisions & Rules, as well as Business Strategy and Transformation.

Since this is a 10th anniversary edition expect lots of cool stuff: 5 days, 17 tracks, 28 tutorials, 130 sessions, over 170 speakers (including people you know also from BPM Tips roundup posts and interviews like: Adrian Reed, Alec Sharp, Angela Wick, Denis Gagne, Gladys Lam, Jacob Feldman, James Taylor, Jan Vanthienen, Kupe Kupersmith, Laura Brandenburg, Mathias Kirchmer, Roger Burlton, Roger Tregear and Ronald Ross) and more than 1500 delegates from all over the world!

If you want to attend, code “BPMBBC” will give you 15% discount.

Fundamentals of BPM

As you may recall in a last year edition of this post I wrote that 2  great MOOCs by professors Marcello La Rosa, Marlon Dumas, Jan Mendling and Hajo A. Reijers (available on Future Learn and QUT) are no longer available, but this should change in 2019.

While (sadly) there is still no possibility to sign up for those courses in a normal form I have a great news for you!

You can access all the videos via Fundamentals of BPM website:

http://fundamentals-of-bpm.org/mooc/

(you need to look for part “Links to all video materials are available here (Copyright 2015-2017, Queensland University of Technology. All rights reserved).”).

Those links will lead you to PDFs with links to the videos.

UPDATE:
Professor La Rosa kindly allowed me to present content of those PDFs in a form more convenient for you.

Materials from a short introductory MOOC, “Business Process Management: An Introduction to Process Thinking“ (about 1,5 hours!) are available on a following pages:

Business Process Management: An Introduction to Process Thinking – Week 1

Business Process Management: An Introduction to Process Thinking – Week 2

Business Process Management: An Introduction to Process Thinking – Week 3

Stay tuned for similar presentation of materials from a comprehensive MOOC “Fundamentals of Business Process Management”!

Apart from those two awesome courses you can also expand your horizons using other sources. Since there were no significant changes there you can use my previous post.

In the following weeks I will update this post with more information about other interesting courses and materials useful for people interested in BPM.

But before then, I wanted to share additional news with you

BPM Tips is a Media Partner of the Building Business Capability 2019 conference.

If you plan to attend BBC 2019 the following code “BPMBBC” will give you 15% discount.

More info about this coming soon!

New version of the report is being prepared now, so if you want your voice to be heard make sure to fill the survey now – it only takes few minutes.

Fill the BPTrends 2017 BPM market survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6ZHFK57

On June 5th 2017 during OMG Technical Meeting in Brussels BPMN Model Interchange Working Group (BPMN MIWG) presented the Interchange Capability Demonstration.

Below you can see the full recording of the event.

Since I got quite a few questions about the demo scenario from the viewers I thought it would be useful to provide an explanation of what was presented

What is the BPMN MIWG

As you will learn from the introduction done by Denis who chairs the BPMN MIWG, the goal of our group is to make BPMN interoperability true.

What does it mean in practice? Well – if you write a text document in Word, you would expect that content and formatting will be preserved if your colleague opens it in Google Docs – right?

BPMN is a standard notation for modelling processes. What you create are models, not just pretty pictures. So you can create a process diagram in one tool, send it to your colleague who is using different tool for feedback and extensions and move the ready “business diagram” for your IT specialists who will use it for automating the process. You do not need to re-create a diagram in each tool. You do not need to worry about problems with distorted diagrams. Not only visible attributes (e.g. task types) can be preserved but also hidden attributes that are part of the spec or are execution vendor’s extensions.

Sounds obvious? It was not that obvious in 2013 when the group was started. Before that each vendor had to interpret the specification and test their solution with few selected tools to see if everything is fine. This was hard, time consuming and resulted in many problems with exchanging models.

Luckily for the world (or at least this part of the world interested in BPMN Denis Gagne from Trisotech started the BPMN MIWG and vendors interested in BPMN (including BOC Group) got a chance to work together to improve their tools interoperability.

Since this time we did 6 public demonstrations of the interoperability (including the last one in Brussels), prepared over 10 test models and performed tests of over 30 tools (both modelling and automation). Below you can see the preview of the table with test results. Please note it was not updated after the last demo yet (and does not show e.g. results of ADONIS NP).

On the BPMN MIWG page you can see all details of our work – including past demos.

What was presented during the demo

During this demo we were collaboratively modelling few interrelated processes of new employee onboarding. The demo scenario was inspired by a process prepared for new ADONIS NP training videos (ADOmoney Bank case study). The initial models were afterwards extended by Francois from W4 and tweaked by the whole group during few months of preparations for the demo led by Denis.

Why did we need so much time to prepare? It’s because for the first time we were exchanging that many “hidden attributes”. Plus for the first time we tested importing and exporting many diagrams in one file.

Below you can see a picture showing the processes and how were they split into various tools participating in demo.

Common question I got was: Why did you use 9 tools to model 4 diagrams and did it in parallel? Answer is simple: we wanted all the modelling tools to participate actively and did not want to bore the viewers by showing everything in a sequence.

Modelling part

At 8:40 you will see how Tim starts modelling the (main) Onboarding process with Yaoqiang BPMN Editor.

UPDATE: high-def graphic of a final Onboarding diagram

Now Tobias from Signavio steps in and starts modelling the IT process and afterwards Boris from CaseAgile creates second lane of the main pool.

UPDATE: high-def graphic of a final IT diagram

When Tim, Tobias and Boris finished their models (please note that invisible attributes were added in this part e.g. Data Store parameters by Tim) they saved the diagrams to a common Dropbox repository and second wave of participants joined around 12:48.

I started by importing Tim’s diagram to ADONIS and extending it. Francois from (ITESOFT) W4 did the same with model created by Boris, while Antonio (from ITP commerce) continued work of Tobias.

If you look closely you can see that we show hidden attributes added by our colleagues one step earlier (e.g. I am showing Data Store unlimited plus xsd:string definition added by Tim using special feature of ADONIS which allows you not only to take over any data from other tools, but also view and edit it).

Around 17:48 things are getting really busy (luckily Denis was providing narration all the time). Francois had a big diagram to create, so he continues, while next round of participants joins: Simon from Trisotech (who will be merging all the diagrams), Falko from Camunda (who will be modelling the Payroll pool) and Alessandro from Esteco (modelling Facilities pool).

UPDATE: high-def graphic of a final Payroll diagram

UPDATE: high-def graphic of a final Facilities diagram

When all the diagrams were done and merged by Simon, Boris returns (at 25:52) to show the result in additional tool: BPMN View.

Automation part

At 26:30 the models are moved to the automation tools. Only selected parts of the process were shown in order to save time, but the results were impressive and the audience liked it.

You could see how our process is automated on Omny Link (presented by Tim), Camunda (presented by Falko) and W4 (presented by Benjamin).

Please note that automation did not happen “automagically” in a matter of minutes. Our colleagues were using models from our previous session since automation of a process takes some time (especially if you need to add some nice looking forms, provide integration with other systems etc). However after the event Falko showed me how to move from a simple diagram to a proof of concept automation in a matter of 15 minutes. While sitting in a train!

Your takeaways

1) BPMN allows you to interchange diagrams between various tools.
2) You can model “business diagram” in one tool and move the diagram to the automation tool where it will be extended with needed details and executed. And than you can move the diagram back to the “business tool” (it’s called “roundtrip”).
3) If you want to see how your current (or potential) tool supports BPMN interchange you should take a look at the BPMN MIWG page and see the demo recordings plus test results.

PS. You can also view few tweets with pictures from the event:
https://twitter.com/frncsbnnt/status/871743471526268928
https://twitter.com/tstephen10/status/871759599971557378

There was also a press release about it.

In this interview Prof. Marcello La Rosa shares best practices of implementing Business Process Management in organizations.

In the video Marcello tells about his online course (MOOC) “Fundamentals of BPM”. I have a chance to participate in this course and recommend it fully.

Do you prefer podcast-friendly version? MP3 is below:

Part 2 of the course “Process analysis and redesign” starts today, so make sure to sign up! The course lasts till Dec 18th. Part 3 of the course will take place in 2017.

BTW: ADONIS:CE is one of the tools you can use for the course project work, so if you have any technical questions just let me know and I will be glad to help.

News #1: If you pass the exam for the MOOC course you can get CBPA certificate from The Association of Business Process Management International (ABPMP)!

Here’s how it works: The MOOC is recognised by ABPMP as equivalent to the educational requirements needed for the ABPMP CBPA Certificate (Level A – Associate). MOOC staff will send a list of people who have completed the exam to ABPMP. Then these people can approach ABPMP and obtain the certificate by paying an admin fee to ABPMP (USD40) and by abiding by their code of ethics.

Link to the MOOC: https://moocs.qut.edu.au/learn/fundamentals-of-bpm-process-analysis-and-redesign-november-2016

News #2: The BPM Value Summit starts in a week. It will be a 3 day online event with 10+ BPM experts sharing with you working strategies on how to create value for organization with BPM.