Overview
So far, we have looked at business processes in the context of one organization. In Week 2, message events have been introduced with the motivation that they allow for the interaction of business processes in the absence of a central execution agent. The interaction of business processes is called process choreography. In the final week of our online course, we will attend to modeling and analyzing process choreographies.
Week 6 consists of five video clips that address the following topics.
- From Orchestrations to Choreographies
Business processes can interact by exchanging messages. This is represented by message events and send/receive tasks in the business process models of an organization, the execution of which is called orchestration. Connecting business processes by corresponding messages that are sent and received, yields a choreography – the interaction of a set of business processes of different organizations. - Collaboration Diagrams
Every business process modeled in BPMN is contained in a pool which represents the organizational boundaries. A collaboration diagram may contain several pools that represent several organizations; where pools or process elements are connected by message flow. These diagrams describe, how different organizations collaborate to achieve a common goal. - Public and Private Processes
The business processes of an organization are a vital asset and offer competitive advantage. Hence, organizations are reluctant to show their internal process logic, which we call private processes. Public processes are an abstraction of private processes that only show the interaction logic (i.e., the order of send and receive activities/events) required to design successful choreographies. - Choreography Diagram Basics
BPMN offers a dedicated diagram type for choreographies that represent the interactions of organizations from a global perspective. Choreography tasks capture an interaction of a pair of business processes; choreography diagrams describe the overall interaction logic and are used for specifying an interaction contract between business partners. - Events and Gateways in Choreography Diagrams
Choreography diagrams can be refined using gateways and events to model more elaborate interactions. However, in order to ensure that the choreography can be enacted successfully a number of restrictions apply. Enforceability is a property that ensures that choreographies can be carried out successfully.
Organization
Also in the last week, there is a number of self tests , one for each video clip. You have as much time as required to solve these tests, you can take them at any time and arbitrarily often.
Please recall: At the end of the week, you need to submit a homework . For the homework you should calculate 30-45 minutes and the homework has a time limit (60 minutes) . Please be advised that this test can only be started ONCE (closing the browser does not stop the timer). In addition, the homework starts when you click on the start button on the homework page . So, only click on the button if you are willing to take the assignment. The achieved score in the homework contributes to your total score for this course. You will be informed about your results and a sample solution is published a day after submission deadline
If questions arise with regard to the lectures, self tests, or assignments, don't hesitate to use the community forum.
All the best!
Weekly Schedule
Please be aware of the following dates for this week.
- The homework needs to be submitted latest December 9th , 2013, at 22:00 (10:00 pm) CET. Submission is already open; after consulting the lecture material (videos, slides, and reading material), you can start on the homework right away.
- The solution for this week's homework will be published on Tuesday, December 10th , 2013, at 10:00 (am) CET.
- The final exam will be made available on Saturday, December 7th , 2013, at 10:00 (am) CET and needs to be submitted by December 16th , 2013, at 22:00 (10:00 pm) CET.
Reading Material
- Process choreographies are discussed in the book Business Process Management – Concepts, Languages, Architectures in Chapter 5. We cover choreographies quite exhaustively, starting with public processes and investigating how to enhance public processes to private processes without hampering overall correctness. From there, we move on to service interaction patterns and to BPMN choreography diagrams.
- Participants interested in more details on the relationship between public processes and private processes are referred to Van der Aalst, Weske:_ The P2P approach to interorganizational workflows._ In Advanced Information Systems Engineering 2001 (CAiSE 2001), pp 140-156.
- Almost all examples in our course were developed from scratch by the teaching team. The book store example used throughout this week, however, was inspired by an example introduced in Petri net notation in the paper by Wil van der Aalst: Inheritance of Interorganizational Workflows: How to Agree to Disagree Without Loosing Control? BETA Working Paper Series, WP 46, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, 2000.
- Details on the material related to BPMN covered this week can be found in the BPMN version 2.0 specification in Chapters 9 (Collaboration) and 11 (Choreographies).
Course Material
- A ZIP package containing all videos plus the complete slide set with ink remarks by Prof. Weske can be found here (~550 MB).