Title: Supporting BPMN tool developers through meta-algorithms

Authors: Carlos Habekost Dos Santos; Lucinéia Heloisa Thom; Érika Cota; Marcelo Fantinato

Addresses: Informatics Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil ' Informatics Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil ' Informatics Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil ' School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract: Business process model and notation (BPMN) provides an extensive set of notational elements, such as activities, events and gateways, which enable the representation of a wide variety of business processes. The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach to develop logical models (referred here as 'meta-algorithms'), whose goal is to express the content described in the textual rules, for each BPMN element, considering the BPMN2.0.2 specification. We identified that there is completeness and correctness in this approach, applying decision tables and control-flow graphs to checking the proposed meta-algorithms. In addition, we applied two surveys, considering a potential audience for the proposed meta-algorithms in order to check users' acceptance. For validation results, we identified that only textual rules are not enough to implement the notational elements for 84% of the survey participants.

Keywords: BPMN; tool development; notational elements; meta-algorithms; business information systems; developer; business rule.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2019.103793

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2019 Vol.32 No.4, pp.460 - 488

Received: 07 Oct 2017
Accepted: 08 Feb 2018
Published online: 29 Nov 2019 *

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