Enhanced Business Process Modeling

In this release, many major and minor enhancements are made to the business process modeling related features. The most remarkable ones are automatic Pool stretching and smart connector routing. Automatic Pool stretching reduces time and effort in resizing Pools and Lanes, while smart connector routing reduces time and effort for re-routing connectors. With those enhancements, time spend on modeling can be reduced drastically.

Pools and Lanes are, by default, stretched to fit the diagrams’ size, which reduces time for resizing Pools on the same diagram when one is resized.





To turn off Auto Stretch, right-click on the Pool and select Auto Stretch > Off from the popup menu. Alternatively, right-click on the BPD and deselect Auto Stretch Pools to suspend this function for all the Pools on the diagram.

When creating Flow Objects such as Sequence and Message Flow in Business Process Diagram, it’ll find the most appropriate point for attaching the connector end point, which is often the middle of a side.


Besides, the routing will be more smooth in general. It allows shape to flow freely, yet in a disciplined fashion, making the diagram easier to understand.



Account for the above factors, user need not to spend time on reorganizing connectors, which increases efficiency.

Besides being contained by a Lane, Data Object and Text Annotation can also be positioned at the Lane border.

Three new resource icons are introduced for BPMN Task and Sub-Process.

• Sequence/Message Flow → Text Annotation
• Sequence/Message Flow → Data Object
• Sequence/Message Flow → Pool
  
  

When create Text Annotation or Data Object by clicking on the corresponding resource icon, it will try locate the created shape at the free region on the diagram. The searching of free area is in this order: left, right, top, bottom.

When creating shape via the resource icons of Pool, the connector will appear as straight line perpendicular to the Pool border, connecting to the created shape.

Resize of Pool, both with and without Lane, can be made by dragging any of the 4 borders of the Pool, not only the resize boxes.

When you move a shape near the diagram edge, the diagram will expand. The speed of expansion is slowed down, which makes the shape position much controllable.

With the Delete (Not Delete Child) way of deleting BPMN Group, only the Group will be deleted, but not the contained shapes. To delete both the Group and the contained shapes, take the traditional Delete option.

In the previous release, in order to insert a line break in a Text Annotation object, user need to press the Ctrl-Enter key. Now, the default key for inserting line break in Text Annotation is set to be Enter. It is possible to reset this behavior in the Options dialog box (Tools > Option, Diagramming > Create new line key).

• Know more about Business Process Visual ARCHITECT - A powerful business process modeling tool.
  http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/bpva/
  
  
• Look at the features of Business Process Visual ARCHITECT
  http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/bpva/features/
  
  
• Get the Free 30 Days Trial of Business Process Visual ARCHITECT
  http://www.visual-paradigm.com/download/
  
  
• Learn more on visual modeling feature from Business Process Visual ARCHITECT’s online documentation
  http://www.visual-paradigm.com/documentation/bpvauserguide.jsp?format=html
  
  
• Screenshot of Business Process Visual ARCHITECT
  http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/bpva/bpvascreenshots.jsp
  
  
• Know more about Visual Paradigm Suite 3.2
  http://resource.visual-paradigm.com/vpsuite3.2/