Executable BPMN diagrams with Camunda
Camunda is an open source platform written in Java for Business Process Management. It is used for one of the most promising and, at the same time, compelling tasks in business process planning and performance - business process automatisation. BPMN diagrams that are utilized in this practice are known to be highly standardised, lacking ambiguity and rich enough in symbols to provide a very detailed action plan for a business project. In addition, the language of BPMN is quite strict in rules and straightforward in order to be understood by both subject matter business experts and technology architects.
Camunda Architecture
At the core of the Camunda platform there is Workflow / DMN / CMMN Engine accessible to the users through REST/API interaction with web interface. In its turn, the web interface consists of the Tasklist, Cockpit and Admin sections with access restrictions for average users, administrators and developers.
Tasklist serves to start executable business processes and constitutes a BPMN user interface created on the basis of a predefined BPMN model which is designed by a business analyst or a project manager, for example, using Camunda Modeler as a compatible web application meant to draw executable BPMN diagrams for Camunda.
The Cockpit section with technical specialist access only allows to monitor the backend of the processes/tasks execution flow and deployments, view their history to discover problems and inspect incidents by auditing task execution logs and observing the process variables changes. It is also possible to suspend a process in the course of execution, edit process variables, modify status, change rules and so on in order to make on-the-spot improvements.
Camunda Admin module is meant for user management like granting permissions, arranging them into groups, perform user authorization and identification.
Managing complex activity with Camunda
At Quintagroup, we know how to set and configure complex executable business processes with Camunda. This technology can be applied to execute any automatization-liable process within a company activity, starting with tasks as simple as lunch ordering and heading for more complicated and demanding ones.
For instance, utilization of executable BPMN diagrams with the purpose of tracking and handling the employees’ work time may help to manage Asana tasks by manipulating user attendance information received from Odoo. This can serve as a great sample case to illustrate the functionality of this approach. The executable diagram then works as a connector or a “person in charge” between the two completely unrelated systems by grabbing the necessary data from one system and making decisions based on these data to control and send commands to the other system. Roughly speaking, in such a way it becomes possible to save the personnel specialist’s time and effort and delegate some routine tasks to the machines powered by smart technologies.