A metamodel to integrate business processes time perspective in BPMN 2.0

Abstract

Context: Business Process Management (BPM) is becoming a strategic advantage for organizations tostreamline their operations. Most business experts are betting for OMG Business Process Model and No- tation (BPMN) as de-facto standard (ISO/IEC 19510:2013) and selected technology to model processes. Thetemporal dimension underlies in any kind of process however, technicians need to shape this perspectivethat must also coexist with task control flow aspects, as well as resource and case perspectives. BPMNpoorly gathers temporary rules. This is why there are contributions that extend the standard to coversuch dimension. BPMN is mainly an imperative language. There are research contributions showing timeconstraints in BPMN, such as (i) BPMN patterns to express each rule with a combination of artifacts, thusthese approaches increase the use of imperative BPMN style, and (ii) new decorators to capture timerules semantics giving clearer and simpler comprehensible specifications. Nevertheless, these extensionscannot yet be found in the present standard.Objective: To define a time rule taxonomy easily found in most business processes and look for an ap- proach that applies each rule with current BPMN 2.0 standard in a declarative way.Method: A model-driven approach is used to propose a BPMN metamodel extension to address time- perspective.Results: We look at a declarative approach where new time specifications may overlie the main controlflow of a BPMN process. This proposal is totally supported with current BPMN standard, giving a BPMNmetamodel extension with OCL constraints. We also use AQUA-WS as a software project case study whichis planned and managed with MS Project. We illustrate business process extraction from project plans.Conclusion: This paper suggests to handle business temporal rules with current BPMN standard, alongwith other business perspectives like resources and cases. This approach can be applied to reverse engi- neering processes from legacy databases.