Top-Level Diagrams

A top-level diagram is a special form of business process diagram required by ebXML and BPEL languages, which provides a high-level representation of a system and its interactions with business partners.

Note: To create a business process diagram in an existing BPM, right-click the model in the Browser and select New > Business Process Diagram. To create a new model, select File > New Model, choose Business Process Model as the model type and Business Process Diagram as the first diagram, and then click OK.

For other languages, the top-level diagram is simply the highest level of choreography diagram (see Choreography Diagrams).

When working with ebXML and BPEL languages, business or technical analysts should identify the business partners of their system in order to specify its scope and the interactions with those partners.

Partners are connected to a top-level process by role associations and can perform either initiating or responding roles in relation to the system.

In the following example, Carrier, Provider, and Buyer are business partners, which interact with the Sell Goods top–level process. The Buyer performs an initiating role in relation to the system, while the Provider and the Carrier perform a responding role:

Having created a top-level diagram, you can then decompose your top-level process to create a choreography diagram (see Choreography Diagrams).