BPMN Glossary

The terms of BPMN in alphabetical order. Each entry has one or two sentences and a link to the page with the details. Where Flower gives a term a meaning in Jira, the entry says so.

A

Activity. Work that is done in a process. An activity is either a task or a sub-process. See BPMN Tasks. In Flower: an activity becomes a Jira work item.

Ad-hoc sub-process. A sub-process whose steps have no fixed order. Marked with a tilde. See BPMN Sub-Processes.

Artifact. An element that adds information for the reader and does not affect the flow: a text annotation or a group. See BPMN Data and Artifacts.

Association. A dotted line that links an artifact or a data object to an element.

B

Black box pool. A pool without content. It stands for a participant whose process is not shown, for example a customer. See BPMN Pools and Lanes.

Boundary event. An event on the border of an activity. It reacts to something that happens while the activity runs, for example a deadline. See BPMN Events.

BPMN. Business Process Model and Notation, the standard for business process diagrams. Maintained by the Object Management Group and published as ISO/IEC 19510. See What Is BPMN?.

C

Call activity. An activity that calls another process model. In Flower: it runs the other model as a sub-process. See Sub-Processes.

Catch event. An event that waits for something to happen: a message, a time, a signal.

Collaboration. A diagram with two or more pools that exchange messages.

Compensation. Undoing the effect of an activity that is already complete. See BPMN Markers.

Conditional event. An event that fires when a business condition becomes true. See BPMN Conditional Events.

Condition. An expression on a sequence flow after a gateway. The flow is taken when the condition is true. In Flower: conditions read the fields of Jira work items. See BPMN Gateways.

D

Data object. Information that a process uses or produces, such as a document. See BPMN Data and Artifacts.

Data store. A place where information stays after the process has ended, such as a database.

Default flow. The outgoing flow of a gateway that is taken when no condition is true. Drawn with a slash. See BPMN Flows.

E

End event. The event that ends a path of the process. Drawn as a circle with a thick border.

Error event. An event for a failure that the process can handle. In Flower: a work item resolved in an error status takes the error path. See BPMN Error Events.

Escalation event. An event that asks a higher level for attention, without having to stop the work. See BPMN Escalation Events.

Event. Something that happens during a process: a start, an end, a message, a deadline. Drawn as a circle. See BPMN Events.

Event-based gateway. A gateway after which the first event that happens decides the path. See BPMN Gateways.

Event sub-process. A sub-process that starts when an event happens while its parent runs.

Exclusive gateway (XOR). A gateway that takes exactly one of its outgoing paths. See BPMN Gateways.

F

Flow element. Everything the token can pass: activities, gateways, and events.

G

Gateway. A diamond that splits or joins the flow. See BPMN Gateways.

Group. A dashed frame around elements that belong together. It has no effect on the flow.

I

Inclusive gateway (OR). A gateway that takes every outgoing path whose condition is true. See BPMN Gateways.

Intermediate event. An event between start and end. It either waits for something (catch) or makes something happen (throw).

Interrupting. A boundary event is interrupting when it cancels its activity as it fires. A non-interrupting event leaves the activity open. See BPMN Timer Events.

L

Lane. A part of a pool that stands for a role or a team. In Flower: the work items of a lane get the same assignee. See Swimlanes.

Loop. A part of the process that repeats, drawn with a flow back to an earlier step or with the loop marker. See BPMN Workflow Patterns.

M

Marker. A small symbol at the bottom of an activity that changes its behavior, such as loop or multi-instance. See BPMN Markers.

Message flow. A dashed arrow that shows a message between two pools. See Message Flows.

Multi-instance. An activity that runs once per item of a list, in parallel or one after another.

P

Parallel gateway (AND). A gateway that starts all outgoing paths at once and, as a join, waits for all incoming paths. See BPMN Gateways.

Participant. Someone or something that takes part in a process. Drawn as a pool.

Pool. The box of one participant. It contains one process. See BPMN Pools and Lanes.

Process. A set of activities that leads to a result, with a defined order.

Process engine. Software that runs a process model. Flower is a process engine inside Jira.

Process instance. One run of a process, for example the onboarding of one new employee. In Flower: a Jira work item that bundles all work items of this run.

Process model. The diagram that describes a process. In Flower: a versioned Jira work item. See Get Started with Modelling.

S

Sequence flow. A solid arrow that gives the order of the steps inside a pool. See BPMN Flows.

Start event. The event where a process begins. Drawn as a circle with a thin border.

Sub-process. An activity that contains its own steps. See BPMN Sub-Processes.

Swimlane. The common word for pools and lanes.

T

Task. An activity that is not broken down further. The types are user, manual, service, script, send, receive, and business rule task. See BPMN Tasks.

Terminate end event. An end event that ends the whole process at once. In Flower: it also closes all open work items. See Terminate End.

Text annotation. A note attached to an element.

Throw event. An event that makes something happen, for example sends a message. In Flower: it triggers a Jira Automation rule or calls a webhook. See Triggering Jira Automation with BPMN Events.

Timer event. An event that is triggered by time. In Flower: a timer boundary event sets the due date of the work item. See BPMN Timer Events.

Token. The marker that shows where a running process is. It moves along the sequence flows. See What Is BPMN?.

Transaction. A sub-process whose steps succeed together or are undone together.

U

User task. A task that a person does with the help of software. In Flower: a Jira work item. See User Tasks.

W

Work item. The unit of work in Jira (formerly: issue). In Flower: every task of a running process is a work item.

Workflow pattern. A named, reusable solution for a recurring situation in processes, such as a parallel split. See BPMN Workflow Patterns.