Now that we have many managers using the tool all of the projects are coming to me for review. Although I have documented within my company that the spec doesn’t let you use message flows within the same pool (section 5.1.4 of the spec), many diagrams I receive seem to have this (by mistake). As well, I seem to remember the spec saying that sequence flows do not cross pools, i.e. you cannot connect tasks in separate pools with sequences, only messages (although I can’t seem to find where it’s mentioned in the spec…). What I’ve told people is that BPMN states that you only use sequences within the same pools, and that you only use messages between pools.
Unfortunately the BPVA tool doesn’t seem to enforce these specification rules. Is this a bug, an oversight, or an undocumented feature :-?
You are correct that message flow should not be used within the same pool, and only sequence flow can be used for connecting tasks across pools. Actually, we also recommend our users to follow the specification. As you may aware our resource-centric interface does not provide the option to let users to create message flow within pool. The reason why we do not block user from creating message flow is because we want to give more flexibility to users in diagramming.
About sequence flow, the reference is in section 3.4.1:
Note that if a sub-process has been expanded within a Diagram, the objects within the sub-process cannot be connected to objects outside of the sub-process. Nor can Sequence Flow cross a Pool boundary.
About Message Flow, it is not clear for me as in section 3.4.2, it is said that:
Note that Message Flow cannot connect to objects that are within the same Participant Lane boundary.
while in section 5.1.4, they are talking about the pool. I can understand that a participant Lane doesn’t need to send a message to himself but i can understand that within the same process, two different participants are exchanging message, e.g. one participant sending a mail towards another participant when a report is ready so the sequence can continue.
So keep Message flow within the same pool but not within the same Lane and ban sequence flow between Pool. These rules are IMHO more than just best practices and should be implemented in the tool.
I agree. I can’t see any reason why the specification rules are not applied. If they were applied then I think our users would be creating more consistent project models as a result. If the tool can reduce errors, then what’s wrong with that?
In other words, if I wanted a drawing tool that didn’t understand the notation, then I’d tell my users to run Visio instead of BPVA!
Here’s hoping Visual Paradigm will reconsider their position on this one… :?
We will extend the coverage of this rule by warning user who want to create sequence flow across pools through the use of diagram toolbar, not the resource-centric interface.
As I know the fix is ready in the latest release. I suggest you run the product updater to move to it. You can find the updater inside $vp-suite-install-dir/bin
