General Business Process Management - Glossary

Table of Contents

• Design time
• Runtime
• Architecture
• Patterns
• Case Management
• Organizational Model

This shall be a general standard Business Process Management (BPM) Glossary, not specifically valid for TIBCO Business Process Management Products only. The list includes high-level categories subdivided into more deeper characteristics.

Design time

• Project, a bundle of multiple procedure definitions and artifacts

  (this could include all components belong to them, like e.g. Data Fields, Forms, Service Interfaces, Process definitions, Rules)

• Process, a process Definition of a Process Flow 
• Sub-Process, independent reusable part of a Process Definition to typically hide complexity and/or wrap (business) logic
• Start, starting point of a process
• End, ending point of a process
• Activity, actions to be executed within the process flow
• Task, similar to activity and often used within page flow ('human task')
• Participant, resource (system or user) that executes the activity or task
• Form, UI representation of a human task 
• Event, something that can influence the flow execution from the outside
• Signal, can influence the flow execution from inside the process, or other processes ('inter-process communication')
• Timer, timely automation of the flow e.g. for deadline escalation, to meet SLAs, or retry scenarios for failed services
• Service, automated Execution by using Integration e.g. by using technologies like REST, SOAP, JAVA, SQL, etc. 
  • Data Service
  • Rule Service
  • Integration Service
• Service Process, activity flow that combine multiple services within one (usually) stateless process
• Business Service, activity flow manually started by users, usually page flows or just a single form; process starter functionality
• Process Starter, typically used to enable users to fill out initial forms and - on purpose - cancel directly; reduces system and database load through pre-evaluations 
• Page flow, manually executed flow that contains multiple manual activities and sometimes Services, too.

  Wizard of forms in combination with service calls to enrich worker's productivity.

• Gateway, conditions and flow control objects within the flow, e.g. to parallelize activities or branch into different sections 
• Rule, more or less complex logical rules, business rules, decision tables
• Data Fields 
  • Basic, single or arrays of just strings, numbers, date, time, etc. value types
  • Complex, data class definitions that can contain multiple basic types and a hierarchy 
  • Global Data, data that is shared between multiple process instances

    (Basic and Complex belong to one process Instance only)

  • Documents, attached artifacts referenced by a process Instance or central Global Data Store

    (e.g. TIFF, PDF, DOC, etc.)

  • Interface, individual data structures based Basic, Complex, and Global Data,

    hat can be defined once and reused in multiple implementations 

  • Reference, Case Ref for instance

Runtime

• Engine, the Business Process Management Software is running on a Server
• Application, a Project defined at Design time running on the Engine
• Process Instance, single running process flow containing his own dataset
  • active, currently in execution in human activities with outstanding work items or in service execution
  • closed, completed process instance
  • suspended, locked process instance in the current status of the execution
  • halted, stopped/paused process instance because of an error, it can be e.g. retried
• Inbox, holds all current work items of a human resource that are assigned to him or a group he belongs to
• Work View, a filtered and/or somehow sorted Inbox
• Work List, a table that contains the Work items of a Inbox or View
• Work Item, the process activity or task of a running process instance.
• Task
  • Schedule, a work item gets created in a Work List
  • Open, a human resource selects a work item and a UI Form will be rendered
  • Close, the Form gets closed and Information entered/changed will be saved
  • Cancel, the Form gets closed and Information entered/changed will be discarded
  • Complete, the Form gets closed and Information entered/changed will be committed to the flow, the flow moves on to the next activities as defined
  • Withdraw, a work item gets removed form the Work List (e.g. because of a Timer escalation or a Signal)
• Deadline, timer until something needs to be done or a wait for a escalation
• Attributes, data fields belong to a process instance, an event, or work item

Architecture

• Frontend, user interface
• Business Process Management, responsible for the enterprise business process execution
• Composite Service, higher level automated Service Process sometimes against multiple Backend Systems,

            used by the Business Process Management System

• Integration Service, single Service containing multiple Operations against one Backend or System
• Service Operations, a single functionality e.g. create new Order in Backend
• Backend, a key System with the record of truth containing Business Data, e.g. a Order System or Document Management System
• Analytics, Statistics and Analysis in Dashboards about Business Data, running Instances, and actual Status Information.
• Reporting, more historical Dashboards of the Analytics.

Patterns

• Workforce Management, how work gets distributes for human resources
  • offer, work item that gets send to multiple human resources
  • allocate, work item that gets send to a single human resources and assigned to him
• Retain Familiar, the work items of one process instance get always allocated to the same human resource, for defined Activities
• Separation of Duties, the work items of one process instance get never again to the same user, for defined Activities
• Chained Execution, the work items of one process instance get automatically pushed to the same user, for defined Activities

  (like in Page flows, but persisted and stateful)

• Piling, the same type of work item (same Process and Activity Type) get automatically pushed to the user

Case Management

• Case, just data and/or documents that belong to the same business concern with a Status, e.g. an Order, Claim, or Customer
• Case-Search, search functionality for existing Cases
• Case-Instance, one single record within the search
• Case-Action, Activities a human resource can execute against a Case-Instance, with regards to Status and Permissions
• Case-Status, controls available actions e.g. update Order, cancel Order, and describes the case progress

Organizational Model

• Organization, a whole enterprise or just a subpart needed to execute a process and perform the Work Management
• Dynamic Organization, e.g. Branch Offices that can change or reorganized on the fly
• Group, a defined set of human resources, e.g. like Supervisors
• Business Unit, a part of the Organization, e.g. Front office
• Hierarchy, connections between several Business Units
• Position, a resource Type belong to a Business Unit e.g. Team Leader, Team Member
• Privileges, permissions that a human resource is able to execute in the engine or business process, e.g. change work item priority or handle employee contracts
• Capabilities, qualifications or skills of a human resource, e.g. language, trained on VIP customers