Decomposing Processes

You can decompose processes into subprocesses to analyze them in more detail. The decomposed process has its own sub-diagram, which models the control flow or data flow between its sub-processes. Sub-processes can be further decomposed until you reach a sufficient level of detail or atomic tasks that cannot be further decomposed.

You can decompose a process and create an empty business process diagram under it in the following ways:

• Use the Process tool to create a subprocess beneath the process in a process hierarchy diagram (see Process Hierarchy Diagrams (Analysis)).
• In a business process diagram or process hierarchy diagram, press CTRL and double-click the process symbol to decompose the process and open the new diagram.
• Right-click the process in the diagram or Browser and select Decompose Process.
• Open the property sheet of the process and, on the General tab, select the Decomposed Process radio button.

Any objects that you create in the sub-process diagram are listed in the Browser under the decomposed process. In the following example, we begin with three processes in the Top Level Processes diagram:

Then the Log In process is decomposed. Its symbol acquires a plus sign overview, and a new diagram is created beneath it in the Browser:

You can navigate in the hierarchy of diagrams as follows:

• To descend into the subdiagram beneath a decomposed process, press CTRL and double-click its symbol, or (double-click the diagram node in the Browser).
• To go up a level in the diagram hierarchy, right-click the diagram background and select Diagram > Go Up One Level.
• To go to any diagram in the model, right-click the diagram background, select Diagram > Select Diagram, and choose the diagram from the tree.

The diagram is empty at first. We rename it and create three new processes, a start, and an end to provide a complete control flow. These objects are listed under Log In in the Browser:

Note: In general, we recommend that you create only one diagram under each decomposed process to capture its entire control flow, but it may in certain cases be appropriate to create addtional diagrams to model exception cases such as for error management. You cannot create a package inside a decomposed process, but you can use shortcuts to packages.

You can group existing processes and other control flow objects into a new decomposed process, which has the effect of adding a new level of decomposition above them:

• Select one or more symbols, and then select Tools > Create Composite Process to replace them with a new composite process with its symbol set to composite view to display the sub-objects.
  Note: A start and end are added to the decomposed process to make a complete control flow. Any starts or ends included in your selection are not moved.
• Right-click the business process diagram background and select Diagram > Convert to Composite Process (or right-click the diagram node in the Browser and select Convert to Composite Process), enter a name for the new process and select the processes from the diagram that you want to move into it. Any processes that you do not select remain at their present level and are represented in the new sub-process diagram as shortcuts.

In our example, we select the two processes Enter UserName and Enter Password, and select Tools > Create Composite Process. The processes are moved to under a new process, provisionally named Scope_1, which replaces them in the Log In diagram:

We rename the process and its diagram to Enter Credentials, and right-click the symbol and select Composite View > Adjust to Read-Only View to display the sub-processes:

If the sub-diagram is very large, it may be shrunk to fit in the symbol. You can adjust the symbol manually to change the zoom level.

To hide the subdiagram, right-click the symbol and select Composite View > None:

To redisplay the sub-symbols, right click the symbol and select Composite View > Read-only (Sub-Diagram).

You can view the complete structure of your processes in a process hierarchy diagram (see Process Hierarchy Diagrams (Analysis):). You may need to select Symbol > Show Symbols to add your decomposed processes to the diagram:

You can view your processes in list form by selecting Model > Processes. To display all processes in the List of Processes, including those belonging to decomposed processes, click the Include Composite Processes tool.

You can remove detail from your process hierarchy by right-clicking a decomposed process symbol and selecting:

• Change to Atomic Task - Deletes all objects under the decomposed process.
• Remove Composite Process Level - Deletes the decomposed process and replaces it in the control flow of the diagram with its child objects.

In our example, we right-click the Log In process symbol in the Top Level Processes diagram and select Remove Composite Process Level, and it is replaced in the control flow by the Open Browser and Enter Credentials processes: