Business process diagrams

In BPMN, there is a set of core elements that has been defined in a business process diagram, allowing users to start creating the essential gist of a process. These core elements can be further elaborated to take care of the complexities, while still maintaining the standard look and feel of the diagrams.

Core elements are subdivided into five categories, each of which contains a specific set of elements:

• Flow objects

  • Events

  • Activities

  • Gateways

• Connecting objects

  • Sequence flows

  • Message flows

  • Associations

  • Data associations

• Data

  • Data objects

  • Data inputs

  • Data outputs

  • Data stores

• Swimlanes

  • Pools

  • Lanes

• Artifacts

  • Groups

• Text annotations

Flow objects consist of the backbone elements in a business process diagram and are used to represent the basic behavior of any process. These elements are events, activities, and gateways.

Events
Activities
Gateways	Figure 1: BPMN flow objects

Events represent the various states relevant for the business process, such as the start of the process, wait...