| # Introduction 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 ERP Enterprise sessions to the users, and the order in which these ERP Enterprise sessions must be used. The relationship between business functions and business processes 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. 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. 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. 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. |