<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ManualTopic ID="/baanerp/tg/onlinemanual/em000490" xml:lang="en">
   <Header>
      <Title>Introduction</Title>
      <Keyword type="header" order="d1e1955842">
         <Level1>Business processes</Level1>
         <Level2>introduction</Level2>
      </Keyword>
      <Keyword type="header" order="d1e1955847">
         <Level1>Introduction</Level1>
         <Level2>business processes</Level2>
      </Keyword>
   </Header>
   <GeneralSection>
      <Paragraph>A business process model visualizes the business processes that
		must be used to complete the implemented business function of an organization.
		While the business functions in the control model only relate to what takes
		place in an organization, the business processes visualize how the functions
		must be carried out. The processes also present the relevant LN sessions to the
		users, and the order in which these LN sessions must be used.</Paragraph>
      <Figure space-and-orientation="indented-estimated">
         <HTML:IMG xmlns:HTML="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" width="942" height="488"
                   SRC="../images/tr_graph_dem_rel_bf_bp.png"
                   alt="[...]"/>
         <FigCaption>The relationship between business functions and business
		  processes</FigCaption>
      </Figure>
      <Paragraph>An unlimited number of business process diagrams can be defined
		for each business process model. Each diagram consists of a graphical depiction
		of the activities that must be carried out to complete part of a business
		function.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph>The relationships between activities and the order of the
		activities are modeled according to the Petri-net modeling conventions.
		Therefore, a process contains activities, control activities, states, and
		relationships between the first three components. For information on Petri-net,
		see appendix A.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph>Activities are steps you must perform to complete a part of the
		business process. Activities can represent manual tasks, applications, business
		processes, triggers, or a file based task. The last option requires that the
		file is located on your local machine, or on a shared network
		drive/directory.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph>States represent the output from one activity and the input for
		the next activity. Control activities represent decision points in a business
		process diagram. A branch of the process flow can be activated or deactivated
		at these decision points. This can be done based on implementation choices, or
		operational choices, and is realized by static conditions.</Paragraph>
   </GeneralSection>
</ManualTopic>