Essential Guide to BPMN 2.0 Building Blocks

BPMN 2.0 Building Blocks

BPMN 2.0 (Business Process Model and Notation) provides a standardized way to model business processes using clear, visual elements.



This section introduces the key building blocks, including events, activities, gateways, and artifacts, which are essential for constructing effective process models.



Each section offers a detailed explanation of these elements, helping you understand their role in designing clear, functional workflows.

The elements of a BPMN 2.0 diagram explained: events, activities, gateways, connecting objects, artifacts, and swimlanes — what each one means and when to use it. In the ProcessMind modeler, these map to the Core Elements and BPMN Elements groups in the element palette.

What You’ll Learn

• Events: the things that happen during a process.
• Start Event: where a process begins, and the event types that define it.
• Intermediate Event: events that fire in the middle of a flow.
• End Event: how a process ends, including message and terminating ends.
• Activities: tasks, subprocesses, and call activities.
• Additional Activity Types: sub-processes, ad-hoc, loop, and multi-instance tasks.
• BPMN Gateways: decisions, splits, and merges.
• Connecting Objects: sequence flows, message flows, and associations.
• Pools and Swimlanes: show who does what in a process.
• Artifacts: data objects, groups, annotations, and data stores.
• Custom Element Icons: use your own icons in the modeler.
• Supported BPMN Elements: the full list of BPMN elements ProcessMind supports.