Example: Suppose you create three components corresponding to different stages in processing a customer loan request:

• CreateLoan. Receives a loan request and generates a unique loan ID for the request.
• SearchLoan. Searches the existing loans to verify if the loan exists.
• ApproveLoan. Approves the loan request.

In this example, a business process test tests the entire loan processing workflow from receiving the request through approving the request. An output parameter called LoanID is created by the component CreateLoan. This output parameter stores the value of the loan ID generated when the loan is requested. You could then use this value as an input parameter for subsequent components or flows in the business process test, such as SearchLoan and ApproveLoan.

Example: The source component has one iteration and the target component has one or more iterations (a “1–to–n” relationship).

In this case, the same output value of the source component is used in each iteration of the target component.

Example: The source component and the target component have the same number of iterations (an “n–to–n” relationship).

In this case, the different output values of each of the source component’s iterations are used in the respective iterations of the target component.

The number of iterations in the relationship between the components can be the number of actual iterations in each component or group, or the number of iterations selected in a partial range.

In this example therefore, the three output iteration values of C1 could also have been used as input values in the three iteration runs of C2 (iterations 3, 4 and 5), if that range was selected in C2.

Example: In the example below, the source component CreateLoan has an “n–to–n” (“3 to 3”) relationship with the target component SearchLoan. For each iteration of component input parameter LoanID in SearchLoan, there is a corresponding iteration of component output parameter LoanID from CreateLoan.

Conversely, the source component Login has a “1–to–n” (“1–to–3”) relationship with the target component ApproveLoan. Each iteration of component input parameter LoanOfficer in the ApproveLoan component uses the same component output parameter (Username) from the Login component.