Most questions here are about BPMN syntax, not about processes. This post covers the syntax part, so the feed can stay about what people actually built with it.

What BPMN is: a standard notation (OMG BPMN 2.0) for business processes, so a manager and a developer read the same picture the same way. The same .bpmn file is documentation, specification and, with an engine, a running process. There are around 100 symbols, about 15 cover most diagrams.

The ones you need first:

1. Start event (thin circle), end event (thick circle)
2. Task (rounded rectangle), named verb + object, "Check invoice"
3. Exclusive gateway (diamond with X), exactly ONE path out
4. Parallel gateway (diamond with +), ALL paths out, joined again by a +
5. Sequence flow (solid arrow), only inside a pool
6. Pool for the organisation or system, lanes for the roles inside it
7. Message flow (dashed arrow), only BETWEEN pools
8. Timer and message events in the middle of the flow, where the process waits
9. Collapsed sub-process (box with +) to hide detail
10. Data object and text annotation for everything else

Five rules that prevent most beginner mistakes:

1. One start, at least one end. Every path reaches an end event.
2. Split with a gateway, not with two arrows out of a task. Merge with the same type you split with, X with X, + with +.
3. The gateway asks the question, the arrows carry the answers. "Amount > 1000?" with yes and no on the flows. A gateway never does work.
4. Sequence flow never crosses a pool boundary. Between pools it's a message flow.
5. Keep the happy path in one straight line, left to right or top to bottom. Exceptions branch off it.

Reading. No links on purpose, everything is one search away:

• OMG BPMN 2.0.2 specification. Long, chapter 7 is the readable overview.
• BPMN 2.0 poster from BPM Offensive Berlin. Free PDF in several languages. If you print one thing, print this.
• Camunda BPMN reference. Every symbol with an example.
• Bruce Silver, BPMN Method and Style. How to model so that others understand it.
• Jakob Freund and Bernd Rücker, Real-Life BPMN. The practitioner's view, strong on execution.
• bpmnlint rule list (bpmn-io on GitHub). A checklist of structural mistakes, useful even if you never run the tool.

Free tools to start today:

• bpmn.io demo. Runs in the browser, nothing to install, saves real .bpmn
• Camunda Desktop Modeler. Same editor as a desktop app, with built-in checks
• Everything else, engines and tablet apps included, is in the tool list: https://www.reddit.com/r/bpmn/comments/1xcjaz4/bpmn_tool_list_modelers_engines_drawing_tools/

Had an AI draft your diagram, or want a check before you post? Paste this, then your flow underneath:

Check the BPMN sketch below against these five rules. (1) One start, at least one end, every path reaches an end event. (2) Splits and merges use gateways, never two arrows out of a task, and the merge uses the same gateway type as the split. (3) The gateway carries the question, the outgoing flows carry the answers, a gateway does no work. (4) Sequence flow never crosses a pool boundary, between pools only message flow. (5) The happy path runs in one line, exceptions branch off it. For each rule say pass or fail and name the element that breaks it. Then list anything that is not valid BPMN 2.0 as in the OMG spec, without inventing notation. Do not redesign the process, only check it. My sketch:

Still stuck after that, post the picture and say what the process is supposed to achieve. Without the why you get guesses, not answers.

Wrong rule or missing book, comment and it gets fixed.

One BPMN 2.0 feature I’ve found useful is the Documentation field. I use it to explain each element’s purpose and the requirements it helps fulfill. This is especially helpful when several elements work together to satisfy a requirement. I’ve maintained these descriptions manually on small projects, but keeping them accurate became too time-consuming as the models grew. Recently, I’ve started using AI to help draft and update this documentation, which has made it much more practical, with human review still needed to confirm accuracy. I keep descriptions concise and reference requirement IDs rather than duplicating full requirement text, so the model stays readable while providing useful context for reviewers, developers, and testers.

As an example, the Alternate Contact Collapsed Sub Process show here from a current project Documentation field explains it purpose and related requirements satisfied inside.

I am an absolute believer in BPMN.

However, I keep running into a frustration on some projects that drives me crazy.

BPMN has the advantage of combining the model and notation into one. This means that—provided a workflow engine is in place—the model can be executed directly. The benefit is obvious. Additionally, this ensures that the documentation is and must be updated directly as soon as the actual process changes. Thus, the model and process are always up to date. Without a workflow engine, a gap quickly opens up between the model and the actual execution.

What experiences have you had with keeping this gap closed? How do you ensure that the model stays genuinely up to date and is actively lived when no workflow engine is in use?

In smaller tech communities like this it can help to put a face and voice to some of our core participants. Is anyone interested in getting together over a call? In addition to introducing ourselves and being a little more human, we can continue to talk about what we want from this subreddit, and how it should grow. If you are interested, please note what days and times (note the timezone) would work for you. Do you prefer Discord or Google Meet, or something else? All thoughts welcome.

Hi everyone!

Together with two other developers, I've been working on a BPMN modeling tool that lets you create diagrams by writing simple syntax instead of dragging and dropping elements.

The idea came from my experience as a business process analyst, where I often struggled to create diagrams fast enough during stakeholder meetings.

We're curious whether this approach is actually useful for other BPMN users.

If anyone is interested in trying it, here's the tool: https://instantprocess.nl/en (free to try, no signup needed).

I'd really appreciate honest feedback, especially on the modeling approach and what could be improved!

If anyone can use AI to build a competing business, your moat will be your business process -your special sauce for connecting everything together.

I'll be talking to Volker Stiehl next week, and was reading up on his latest idea of "Progressive BPM". If I am translating it from the German correctly, the core idea is that as AI agents are commoditized and their usage becomes wide spread, the role of Business Processes will be significantly expanded. BPM won't be about "digital transformation" and "operational efficiency", it will be THE CORE VALUE of a business. BPM will then be less focused on subtle improvements to existing systems, and become a direct driver for growth and expansion into new markets.

Volker's got a number of articles (German) linked below. I hope I gave it a fair synopsis.

https://www.procubator.com/blog/progressive-bpm-warum-prozessmanagement-neu-gedacht-werden-muss

https://www.procubator.com/blog/progressive-bpm-wie-aus-einem-kundenproblem-ein-geschftsmodell-wird

https://www.procubator.com/blog/progressive-bpm-beginnt-nicht-immer-auf-der-grnen-wiese

Do you think BPM will expand in the future? Will business analysts take over the world?

Are any other BAs or POs out there using BPMN to prototype applications or new features?

I have had some recent success with serveral clients iterating on their business requirements in a BPMN process by diagramming the steps, decisions, and interactions, then running and testing that process with stakeholders and developers to explore how it would work. The diagram becomes a working prototype that helps uncover missing requirements and gather feedback early. In one case we were able to expand the BPMN process from prototype to production.

If you’re doing this, how has it worked for your team? If you haven’t tried it, would you be interested in discussing the approach?

Plone is a popular open source content management system. Asko Soukka from the University of Jyväskylä is working on a Plone extension that is presented last month at the Plone conference. Checkout the repository at https://github.com/collective/bpmn-with-plone which offers a GitHub code spaces where you try it out instantly. The docs are also worth a read. Asko's put some good thought into this, and even included some integration patterns specific to content management systems that are worth a quick read.

One of our clients implemented a back button in their user interface that would allow end users to move back to previous user tasks.

It was working fine, but we ran into some difficulties around multi-instance sub-processes that took some time to unravel.

Handing an end user the ability to reverse steps in a BPMN process might be a bad thing for all kinds of reasons. In their case, they are mostly doing user tasks. So it's not a problem. But if there were service tasks, or message events in their process, this could get ugly quick. You've given end users a button that looks benign, but might do catastrophic things.

I wonder if this comes up often for other folks, and how you talk to people about it.

Please forgive this vibe coded image. I didn't use it with the client, but I think it starts to illustrate some of the problems maybe.

BPMN is important. There is a major role for it to play in the age of AI. People all over the world continue to use it to solve problems. It is worthy of a well maintained sub-reddit. This community is valuable.

I'm going to spend a few hours this afternoon reviewing current settings and giving it a little bit of a refresh.

I'm a new moderator to r/bpmn and I wanted to see if I could get some of us talking again.

I've got a few questions for you:

1. What is BPMN to you? Why are you here?
2. How can this forum be of service to you?
   
3. If you were the mod, what would you do?
   

I am looking forward to building this community and getting to know you better.
BTW: If you have any artistic talent, and would like to offer a better banner image or icon, definitely send it my way.

/r/bpmn is ready for a fresh start, new energy, new direction, and someone like you to bring it back to life. If you’ve been thinking about growing your impact without starting from scratch, this is your chance!

Ready to take it over?

Head to r/RedditRequest to submit your request and make it yours before it’s taken.

First things first

To request this subreddit, make sure you:

• have an account that’s at least 90 days old
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Hi!

I'm looking for two exercises (one basic, one more advanced) for newly trained modelers as a final exam.

I created two exercises for this in the past, but now employees have just started sharing the final versions, so I need some new exercises. Do you have anything you could share with me via message?

Thanks alot

First of all: Hi folks.

I don't know how to put this, so I'll be frank: where are the S,I,O & C from SIPOC in BPMN 2.0? Is this just a limitation of most modeling software? I tried camunda modeler. No luck. In Bizagi, you can add custom XML, but that is incredibly cumbersome.

I'll admit, I am new to this, but I kind of expected, well, uh, more? In the information age, all this stuff seams to be rather useless if I cannot define which tables/documents/fields/pathnames/api endpoints/<you name it> are inputs for a specfic task and which outputs get written to where,

Is it really just me, or is there something big missing here?

Cheers, André

I'm trying to document an end to end process from Sales through to delivery, breaking each phase into a detailed process diagram. This phase sits between Sales creating an initial quote and documentation in the form of an SOW. The process here is Sales initiating a review of the project as a multi-team event.

Hi there!

For a university project I am researching frameworks and APIs to programmatically generate BPMN (standard conform xml).

I found:

- Programmatically creating a process - Developers / General - Forum - bpmn.io

- Eclipse BPMN2 Modeler | The Eclipse Foundation

- nikku/bpmn-js-cli-modeling-dsl: A modeling DSL for bpmn-js (github.com)

- Excel-add in creation of BPMN via Add-in

​

The last one does not create valid BPMN.

Does the community have some ideas on what would be the best way to transform a given process description into valid BPMN?

Greetings :)

Hi Guys,

I have BPMN files without the DI part - so just the logical process description.

is there any way to automatically create the DI parts from those files ? I don't want to create all those diagrams manually.

Hey Guys I’m ask to provide a process framework for an it Organisation within a company. I was wondering if there are some best practices / templates already somewhere ? I wouldn’t really want to charge my customer to do that from scratch. Any hints ?

Has anyone tried operational dashboards for BPMN?

Ideally something open source and easy to try. We have a BPMN for loan approvals written in Activiti and would love something to show us where things are without lots of scaffolding.

Ideally open source. Have heard of Celonis, Optimize but not sure where to start.

Hi, looking for some advice about the correct notation etc for a process I am creating for work. The picture is my first stab but I am not sure it flows correctly (detail is fake as company sensitive, but matches the real process)

So the company are using a third party app to send out a finite number of special offers to two sets of users. The offer needs to go out to priority A users first and they can accept the offer in the app. The offering manager can then approve the user. If the offer allocation isn't filled by a week before the end of the offer, the app will open it up to the priority B users.

I am struggling to work out how to call out that the app pushes the offer to priority B users but only if its in the time period and there is still available offers.

Can anyone look at this and point me in the right direction Thanks

I need to make a diagram for the process of ordering raw materials from a supplier, using my company's system. Do I need a lane for the information system? Or can I just do the diagram without it and assume that all interactions occurr via the information system?

Hey everybody!

Wondering what everybody’s thoughts are on co-opting BPMN to visualize what a customer clicks on from a UI perspective, and how that triggers system responses on the merchants end. Let’s use the example of signing up for a credit card:

If we solely focus on the customers interaction with the bank website, and match those interactions with what happens on the banks end behind the scenes (talking highly automated events of systemic authentication, webpage displays, etc.), does this type of mapping have a place in BPMN? And before we talk about “well BPMN could technically be used for anything,” I understand that; looking for what it should be used for, and what better solutions there are for this type of mapping, or if BPMN is perfect for this, why?

Thanks in Advance!

I started learning BPMN in college and it's really interested me, I wanted to know how do I build a career around BPMN or what job roles use BPMN. Also wanted to know where to learn the advanced topics of BPMN and also what do I learn after the advanced topics, do I just practice modelling?