A special feature of BPMN compared to other process modelling notation is the possibility to model process collaborations. A collaboration consists of two or more separate processes that communicate via message flow. A process can send a message that starts another process, or a message is sent to an existing process instance that has already been waiting for this message at a message-catching intermediate event.
It is common to use collaborations for modelling the interactions between different business partners, e. g. between the procurement process of a customer and the order handling process of a supplier. However, business partners usually don’t use a shared BPMS platform. Does it also make sense to use collaborations within a single organization – although the same behaviour could be achieved by modeling a single process with several lanes?
The answer is yes, since the separation into different processes supports loose coupling, process re-use and separation of concerns.
The video presents a model of a collaboration and its execution by a processes engine. It also shows how to use a correlation in order to make sure that messages are received by the correct process instances.
Download
You can download the project file for the Community Edition of the Bonita platform.
Prerequisite: Bonita version 2021.2 and above.
Instructions:
- Import bos file in Bonita into a new project.
- In „Organization“: Deploy „BPMCO.organization“ (default user: admin).
- Deploy Business Data Model.
- In „Diagrams“: Deploy the diagram (or press „Run“ to deploy the diagram and directly start the execution in one step).
- Any user can start the process (e.g. „tom“). For the tasks of the IT department you can use user „susan“.
- With „Applications“ you can open the portal. Select „Bonita User Application“.
- The default password for all users is „bpm“.