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Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 1–8Cite as

Business Process Modeling

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Synonyms

Workflow modeling

Definition

A business process model is a representation of the way an organization operates to achieve a goal, such as delivering a product or a service. Business process models may be given as input to a workflow management system to automatically coordinate the tasks composing the business process model. However, business process modeling may be conducted purely for documentation purposes or to analyze and improve the operations of an organization, without this improvement effort implying automation by means of a workflow system.

A typical business process model is a graph consisting of at least two types of nodes: task nodes and control nodes. Task nodes describe units of work that may be performed by humans or software applications or a combination thereof. Control nodes capture the flow of execution between tasks, therefore establishing which tasks should be enabled or performed after completion of a given task. Business process models, especially when...

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Recommended Reading

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Marlon Dumas

Authors
  1. Marlon Dumas
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marlon Dumas .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Dept. di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Barbara Pernici

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Dumas, M. (2017). Business Process Modeling. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_260-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_260-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Computer SciencesReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

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