How to Work with Business Process Models

This task describes how to specify business process models in ALM.

To learn more about business process modeling in ALM, see Business Process Models Overview.

  1. Prerequisites

    • With standard modeling tools, create business process models, and export the business process models to files.

      • BPMN 1.1 models exported to XPDL 2.0/2.1 files

      • BPMN 2.0 models exported to XPDL 2.2 files

      • EPC 7.1 models exported to AML files (.xml extension)

    • To enable mapping of model and activity attributes to ALM entities, add string or memo fields to the following entities:

      • Business Process Models

      • Business Process Model Elements

      For more details on adding user-defined fields, refer to the Micro Focus Application Lifecycle Management Administrator Guide: Adding User-Defined Fields.

  2. Import or re-import business process models

    For concept details, see Business Process Models File Import.

    1. Open the Business Models module. On the ALM sidebar, under Requirements, select Business Models. In the View menu, select Model Tree.

    2. Create a folder. Right-click the Models root folder and select New Folder. To create a sub-folder, right-click a folder and select New Folder.

    3. Open the Import Models dialog box. Right-click a folder and select Import Model. For user interface details, see Import Models Dialog Box.

    4. Select a file and models. In the Import Models dialog box, select a file to import. After the file is analyzed, select the models you want to import from the file.

    5. Map model and activity attributes to ALM fields. In the Import Models dialog box, click Import Attributes. For user interface details, see Map Imported Attributes to User Fields Dialog Box.

    6. Track import status. Track the import status in the Import Models dialog box. When import is complete, click OK to close the Importing Models dialog box.

  3. Create paths

    For concept details, see Business Process Model Paths.

    1. In the Business Models module, select View > Model Tree.

    2. Open the New Path dialog box. Right-click a business process model and select New Path. For user interface details, see New Model Path/Model Path Details Dialog Box.

    3. Select a path. In the Path drop-down list, select a path that is important to test. The activities along the path are highlighted in the model diagram, and a description of the path is displayed in the Path Description tab.

  4. Develop requirements and tests

    To determine the quality of business process models in ALM, you must develop requirements and tests that cover all the critical aspects of the model.

    To assist you in this, ALM automatically creates a structure of business model requirements that represent the models and activities that you import, and the paths that you create.

    1. Use one of the following:

      • Use the representative requirements as a basis for developing a detailed requirements tree and adding test coverage.

      • If you have existing requirements, not related to the representative requirements, you can continue developing them. Later, link them manually to the relevant model entities.

    2. Depending on your testing strategy, create test coverage for the requirements.

      3. For task details, see How to Use Requirements in ALM.

  5. Link requirements and tests to model entities

    For requirements and tests to be included in the quality analysis, you must link them to their respective model entities. For task details, see Link Requirements and Tests to Model Entities.

  6. Analyze the quality of business process models

    After you run tests on your model entities, generate graphs that analyze the quality of a model entity.

    1. Open the Model Analysis view. In the Business Models module, select View > Model Analysis. For user interface details, see Model Analysis View.

    2. Select a model entity for the root of the analysis. Use one of the following:

      • In the Models Map tab, select a model. The corresponding model node is highlighted in the business models tree.

      • In the business models tree, select a model entity.

    3. Click the Quality Analysis tab.

    4. In the Depth drop-down list, select the number of levels to include in the analysis.

    5. Depending on your requirements strategy, choose whether to include representative or child requirements in the analysis.

    6. Click on graph bars to drill down to records represented by the bars. For task details, see How to Generate a Graph.

  7. Generate a report of business process models

    Include business process model entities in project reports. For task details, see How to Create Project Reports.