Process Modeling Languages

A process modeling language allows to describe processes through diagrams with text.

There are different modelling languages used in the market. Software will be classified depending on the modelling language they support and their purpose.

List of Process Modeling Languages

Process modelling languages featured on this post:

Data Flow Diagrams (DFD)
Entity-Relationship (ER) Model
Unified Modeling Language (UML)
System Modeling Language (SysML)
Business Process Modelling (and) Notation (BPMN)
Event-driven Process Change (EPC)

Data Flow Diagram (DFD)

Data Flow Diagram (DFD)

There cannot be data flows between an external entity and a storage.

There are different levels of data flows:

0-level or context diagram
1-level
2-level
3-level

Entity-Relationship (ER) Model

Entity-Relationship (ER) Model.

A soft entity does not have enough attributes to form a primary key.

Unified Modeling Language (UML)

Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a general purpose modelling language for software engineering adopted by the Object Management Group (OMG).

You can read about Unified Modeling Language on this post.

System Modeling Language (SysML)

System Modeling Language (SysML) is an open source and general-purpose modelling language for software engineering, that is defined as an extension of a subset of UML.

Business Process Modeling (and) Notation (BPMN)

Business Process Modelling (and) Notation (BPMN) is a graphical representation for specifying business process in business process modelling. Newest version as of 2023 is BPMN 2.

BPMN can be roughly considered a simplification of the UML activity diagram.

As of 2024, it is managed by the Open Management Group (OMG).

XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) is the serialization language for BPMN, as it is standardized by the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC).

A tool for representing BPMN is jBPM (FOSS).

Event-driven Process Change (EPC)

Event-driven Process Change (EPC) is a type of flowchart used for business process modelling. It is used in the Architecture of Integrated Information System (ARIS) framework.

Process Modeling Tool Software

You can find a list of process modeling tool software on this post.