Using Business Rules in a BPMN Process

Part VI Controlling the Process Flow This part describes how to implement the different BPMN flow object that you can use to control the process flow. It also describes how to communicate with other BPMN processes and external services. This part contains the following chapters: ■ Chapter 17, Controlling the Process Flow ■ Chapter 18, Adding Delays, Deadlines, and Time Based Cycles to Your Process ■ Chapter 19, Handling Errors ■ Chapter 20, Communicating With Other BPMN Processes and Services ■ Chapter 21, Defining the Process Interface ■ Chapter 22, Writing Expressions Controlling the Process Flow 17-1 17 Controlling the Process Flow This chapter briefly describes the different flow objects you can use to control flow in a process. It contains links to the chapters that describe these flow objects with more detail. It also contains a description of the markers you can define for subprocesses. This chapter includes the following sections: ■ Section 17.1, Introduction to Controlling the Process Flow ■ Section 17.2, Introduction to Loop and Multi-Instance Markers in Subprocesses

17.1 Introduction to Controlling the Process Flow

Oracle BPM provides different structures to control the flow of a process. These structures enable you to decide which path a process instance takes based on different conditions. The structures that allow you to control the flow of a process are: ■ Gateways ■ Timer Events ■ Errors ■ Message Events ■ Send and Receive Tasks ■ Loop Markers ■ Multi-Instance Markers

17.1.1 Gateways

Gateways are flow objects that enable you to fork the flow of a process. Depending on the type of gateway the instance follows one ore more outgoing sequence flows coming out of a gateway, or multiple copies are created to run these branches in parallel. For more information about gateways, see Section 6.7, Controlling Process Flow Using Gateways .

17.1.2 Timer Events

Timer events enable you to define the path a process instance takes based on a time condition. For more information about timer events, see Chapter 18, Adding Delays, Deadlines, and Time Based Cycles to Your Process .