Processes, Pools and Swimlanes

BPMN shape

BPMN description

A Process is any activity performed within a company or organization.
A Pool might be used to organize activities and to depict the collaboration between partners.
A business process is then organized inside a pool of Swimlanes. A particular swimlane will present the tasks relevant to a specific business unit for instance.
Note: For usability reasons we recommend to draw the process in vertical orientation (despite the fact that within this guide horizontal orientation is used in some cases).
In order to execute a process, the business process must get the stereotype <<BPMNExecutableProcess>>. If the process contains pools, then all executable pools must have the stereotype <<BPMNExecutablePool>>. In this case, the stereotype <<BPMNExecutableProcess>> is optional. If the process contains pools, tasks must be contained either in an executable- or in a non-executable pool otherwise the importer will complain.
Note: The process must not be in the root package, but within a sub package as name and namespace are derived from the sub package in the UML.

UML representation

UML description

A process, respectively a pool if existing, will be represented by a state machine and by its associated abstract <<PersistentState>> class. Each process instance is represented by a persistent state instance.
A pool existing, the names are derived from the pool, otherwise from the process.
The swimlanes have no UML representation, because they are not yet relevant for the execution of the process.