TY  - JOUR
A1  - Awad, Ahmed Mahmoud Hany Aly
A1  - Weidlich, Matthias
A1  - Weske, Mathias
T1  - Visually specifying compliance rules and explaining their violations for business processes
JF  - Journal of visual languages and computing
N2  - A business process is a set of steps designed to be executed in a certain order to achieve a business value. Such processes are often driven by and documented using process models. Nowadays, process models are also applied to drive process execution. Thus, correctness of business process models is a must. Much of the work has been devoted to check general, domain-independent correctness criteria, such as soundness. However, business processes must also adhere to and show compliance with various regulations and constraints, the so-called compliance requirements. These are domain-dependent requirements.
 In many situations, verifying compliance on a model level is of great value, since violations can be resolved in an early stage prior to execution. However, this calls for using formal verification techniques, e.g., model checking, that are too complex for business experts to apply. In this paper, we utilize a visual language. BPMN-Q to express compliance requirements visually in a way similar to that used by business experts to build process models. Still, using a pattern based approach, each BPMN-Qgraph has a formal temporal logic expression in computational tree logic (CTL). Moreover, the user is able to express constraints, i.e., compliance rules, regarding control flow and data flow aspects. In order to provide valuable feedback to a user in case of violations, we depend on temporal logic querying approaches as well as BPMN-Q to visually highlight paths in a process model whose execution causes violations.
KW  - Business process modeling
KW  - Compliance checking
KW  - Visual modeling
KW  - Anti-patterns
Y1  - 2011
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvlc.2010.11.002
SN  - 1045-926X
VL  - 22
IS  - 1
SP  - 30
EP  - 55
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Laue, Ralf
A1  - Awad, Ahmed Mahmoud Hany Aly
T1  - Visual suggestions for improvements in business process diagrams
JF  - Journal of visual languages and computing
N2  - Business processes are commonly modeled using a graphical modeling language. The most widespread notation for this purpose is business process diagrams in the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). In this article, we use the visual query language BPMN-Q for expressing patterns that are related to possible problems in such business process diagrams. We discuss two classes of problems that can be found frequently in real-world models: sequence flow errors and model fragments that can make the model difficult to understand.
 By using a query processor, a business process modeler is able to identify possible errors in business process diagrams. Moreover, the erroneous parts of the business process diagram can be highlighted when an instance of an error pattern is found. This way, the modeler gets an easy-to-understand feedback in the visual modeling language he or she is familiar with. This is an advantage over current validation methods, which usually lack this kind of intuitive feedback.
KW  - Business process model
KW  - Business process diagram
KW  - BPMN-Q
KW  - Visualization
Y1  - 2011
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvlc.2011.04.003
SN  - 1045-926X
VL  - 22
IS  - 5
SP  - 385
EP  - 399
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - London
ER  -