Business Process Definitions(BPD)

The Business Process Definition is at the heart of every IBM BPM solution. It provides the model for the business process and is established early on in the design phase. This enables easier changes over time. From a high level, a BPD is a diagram that gives an overview and the flow of a process. It will normally be created by the Business Process Analyst through discussions and interviews with other staff members.

Suppose, for example, that you're doing a rough sketch of the business process involved in approving a loan. You're in a meeting room with a whiteboard, and you're discussing the process of approving a loan, drawing on a whiteboard diagram of flowchart-like blocks.

This can be exactly modeled in IBM BPM as a Business Process Definition using the tool of the IBM BPM Process Designer. The message stays, but with the help of IBM BPM PD, it becomes easier to manipulate and drag-and-drop blocks around without the necessity of deleting and redrawing.

Moreover, even in the meeting where the process is being explained, the attendees can be remote and, on their screens, have the same diagram of the process. Business Process Definition is diagram style in an industry-standard format for Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN).

A Business Process Definition is named and saved as part of a Process Application solution when created. Creation occurs within the IBM BPM PD tool, located in the library section under the category Processes.

The Wizard for the Business Process Definition asks for the name of the new BPD to be created.

When created, it opens up in the main canvas area of the BPD editor.

This main area, called the canvas, is where we model the process solution in picture form. Icons representing activities, and other process elements, can be dragged from the right-hand palette of the window and dropped on the canvas. These icons are then strung together with Sequence Lines. Each icon represents a "step" in the process.