In continuation to my first blog on unexplored features in BPMN diagrams, let us now look at Process Diagrams and Interface Diagrams.
Process Diagrams:
A process diagram analyzes the sequence flow in a single process in a participant
Context Menu in Process Diagram:
There are four parts of context menu objects that are available based on where you click on the screen,
#1 – When clicking the object
#2 – When right-click an object
#3 – When clicking the text symbol
#4 – When clicking a lane or pool
Context Menu when clicking an object and right click an object
Menu context when right click the object
Menu context when clicking a text object
Menu context when clicking a lane or pool
Palette Section of Process Diagram:
Palette Section of Process Diagram
The palette consists of two types of buttons:
- Some buttons have some “instances” of objects behind them, like lane, process steps.
- Other buttons represent objects which are graphical only (like gateways, events, sub processes)
We can drag and drop these objects into the working area to create our Process diagram.
All Palette Part 1 buttons refer to Solution Documentation area content.
For example, adding a Process step will show all the respective Process steps available for the particular Process to which the Process diagram is created. Below example shows the list of Process steps available for the Process ‘IBP – Sales & Operational Planning’
Process step button shows all related process steps to the particular Process from Solution Documentation
Likewise, we can add Data Store, Data Object from palette section.
I have created a sample Process Diagram with some data object, gateway etc., as shown below. We can export the BPMN diagrams from SolMan system in PDF, BPMN or SVG formats.
Exporting BPMN diagrams from SolMan
Interface Diagrams:
Unlike other BPMN diagrams which are created at Business Process level in the Solution Documentation hierarchy, Interface diagrams are created in the Interface Library. Interface diagrams describe the sequence of interfaces and interfaces steps.
There are two types of interface diagrams,
- Simple Interface Diagrams – A simple interface diagram is self-contained and cannot be further deconstructed
- Complex Interface Diagrams – Complex interface means that typically multiple systems are involved in the integration scenario which are connected via point-to-point connections
The connection between two interface steps running on two separate Logical Component Groups – which represents a point-to-point interface – can be achieved by adding so-called Intermediate Message Events (IME) to the graphic. The IME is the anchor point for further elements and thus can be used to attach interfaces to the composite interface.
Most important attributes for every interface created in the Interface Library are Sender Logical Component and Receiver Logical Component.
Now let us create a composite Interface <Orig> element in Interface Library and as it’s element we can create Interface Diagram as shown below
First create Composite Interface in the Library Hierarchy and then create Interface Diagram as corresponding element
Palette Section of Interface Diagram:
Palette section of Interface Diagram
Similar to Process Diagram, where the Process Steps are pulled from the related Process present in Solution Documentation Hierarchy, for Interface diagrams, the interface steps are pulled from Interface Library
We can manually also create Interface steps which gets updated in the Interface Library automatically.
Adding Interface step in the Interface Diagram
For example, I have created New Interface steps directly in the Interface diagram and these steps are automatically updated in the Interface Library Hierarchy.
Sample Interface Diagram
Newly added Interface steps are updated in the Interface Library hierarchy
I hope the blog series about unknown features about various BPMN diagrams in SAP Solution Manager was interesting to learn, try and use in our customer projects.
Do check out the first blog on this series if you had missed,
BPMN Diagrams in SolMan 7.2 – Unexplored – Part1 | SAP Blogs
Other useful SAP Links about BPMN diagrams,
Interface diagrams – Solution Manager – Support Wiki (sap.com)
Do share this blog to your SAP team and make full usage of BPMN editor available in SAP Solution manager to create various BPMN diagrams for your customer projects.
