Saturday, October 8, 2011

Using Visio 2010 Premium to create a BPMN Document

 

Creating a New Visio 2010 BPMN Document

The following step will show you how to create the document and setup your workspace

1. From the Visio File Menu Select “Flowchart”.

2. Select “BPMN Diagram”.

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3. From the BPMN Basic Shapes, drag a “Start Event” shape onto the page.

4. “Right click” on the “Start Event” shape and click on “BPMN Attributes” as shown below.

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5. Position the “Shape Data” window as shown in the example below.

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The Visio 2010 BPMN Shapes

Basic Shapes

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BPMN Event Shapes

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BPMN Activities

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BPMN Gateways

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BPMN Connecting Objects

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Visio 2010 BPMN Menu Items

The Visio 2010 “Process Menu”

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Check Diagram

When you “click” on the “Check Diagram” in the menu, all the pages in your document are validated against the “built-in” BPMN Validation Rules.

If the “Issues Window” item is checked, you will see the”Issues Window” as show in the sample below.

Issues Window

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If the diagram fails validation you are presented with the error information as shown in the sample below

Issues Window with errors

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“Double Clicking” on the line will highlight the where the issue occurs within the diagram.

 

Subprocess Menu Items

Link to Existing

If you select a shape on your drawing and then “click” on the “Link to Existing” menu item, you are presented with a drop down menu as show below.

Pages in this Document

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You can create a “hyperlink” from the selected shape to any page within the document.

If you select “Browse to Other Document”, you can also create a “hyperlink” to any file type this can be an Excel Mapping document, Message Schema, Message sample, Business Rule Document, etc.

Create New

If you select a “Sub-Process” shape in the diagram and select “Create New” in the menu, a new diagram page is created. The page is named from the shape.

A hyperlink is created from the selected shape to the new page.

Create from Selection

If you select a group of elements on a page and select “Create from Selection”, this will create a new “Sub-process” Page. A new shape is added to replace the shapes moved to the new page.The page name is not labeled for the sub-process.

An example of the shape is shown below.

Sub-process link shape

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2 comments:

  1. What about simulation in visio? is it supported?
    also what about integration between Visio and BizTalk do you have any recommendations ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. There are third-party tools that support simulations in Visio. I do not use them.

    There is no direct integration between Visio and BizTalk. I use Visio 2010 BPMN to model and design BizTalk solutions. If you look at my Technet Wiki article you will find more information. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/5280.aspx

    ReplyDelete