Designing Efficient BPM Applications

Chapter 5. Assigning Tasks

The previous chapter described all the components of the Tahiti application and how each one starts and stops.

This chapter shows you how to specify who is permitted to start a process instance and which users can perform each task in a process. You will update the process diagram to specify who is permitted to start an instance of the process and who is permitted to carry out each human task. There are several layers of decisions:

• In the process diagram, you specify placeholders (actors) and some logical definitions (actor filter specification).
• When you configure a process for deployment you map the placeholders to sets of users (actor mapping).
• When the process runs, the live information is used (actor filter evaluation).

The BPMN standard defines a Performer, which specifies the resource that can perform an activity. For a human task, the resource is a person. The performer can be specified as an individual, a group, an organizational role or position, or any combination of these criteria.

The standard does not define a way to show performers in the diagram. However, it does define the concept of a lane. The container for a process in a diagram is a pool. You can divide a pool into several lanes (think swimlanes in a swimming pool). A lane can be used to organize a diagram into whatever categories you find useful, and the standard contains an example of lanes that match groups within an organization.

This chapter deals with who does what in a process, ...