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Processes are the heart of the whole product. Are we going to get
a great deal more in terms of functionality with these? We think
there is little benefit in regards to process design per se, as it
happens. Formatting is much nicer, however.
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For those that like them, there are now Swimlanes. They are
there for those that don’t like them too, of course, but they can
be very easily ignored.
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As can be easily seen, they do add quite a bit to the
attractiveness of the Process map. This is more pronounced when
colours are employed.
I am not certain I shall often use them myself, as it can make
the process design awkward. Many analysts will love the idea,
especially as a lot of specifications use the concept.
Managers may well like the idea from a documentation
perspective. The addition of meaningful icons, as we have here,
makes them even more useful.
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We now have the ability to set some options regarding the style
of the Process map. Most important is probably the addition of
‘shapes’ for the Stages.
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These are potentially attractive if you wish to keep to a particular
notation. You have the ability to change these from the default,
but not to set the default shape for a Stage type. This could
require a lot of maintenance if the defaults (as shown) do not
conform to your needs.
We find the addition of the Visual Script ‘arrows’ makes the
diagram a bit ‘busy’, although they are extremely useful to
portray the existence of scripts (solid arrows), and offer an easy
way to edit them.
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Another potential useful option is the different line styles. You
now have the option to use the standard ‘bendy’ lines, hard or
rounded ‘square’ lines, or straight lines.
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Care does need to be taken to use each style effectively, but you
can set the default and change each line individually to deal with
any difficult positioning.
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As we have demonstrated, it is now possible to have truly
parallel processes. This was not really possible before, and any
attempt would involve a significant amount of awkward and
difficult to maintain code.
You can even now do this with no code or SQL at all, viewing and
updating data from different processes, due to the new way forms
and data have been dissociated from the process. This can result
in far more elegant and easy to maintain systems, although care
does need to be taken.
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As well as the formatting options for fields, these are available in
full for Process Maps as well. This can make laying maps out
quite a bit easier.
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Process Maps can now be zoomed in and out. This can make
navigation of larger maps a great deal easier.
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1. The Benefits of Metastorm BPM ...
