Services

Events in relation to a BPD characterize the general process flow and can be visualized from the diagram for a clean and readable perspective. Conversely, a BPD indicates huge amounts of information but does not provide the functionalities concerning the actual implementation of the process. Consider a very simple process of how you prepare your cup of tea in the morning.

Each step is executed using the idea of a service in IBM BPM. A service can be thought of as a reusable implementation of some specific function of which the caller is ignorant of its completion. Within BPDs, every activity in a diagram is mapped to a service and, at runtime, the corresponding service is triggered as soon as that step in the process is reached.

Services are typically invoked from the activity step of a BPD, with the service to be invoked within the confines of a given activity defined in the Implementation tab.