Patterns { descriptions of proven and well-documented solutions for recurring problems { have gained widespread interest and acceptance in the area of business process modeling. In the past years, a large number of such patterns have been documented in the literature. However, it is still di cult to nd patterns that can be useful in a given context. The reason is that the relevant publications are spread in various journals and other types of publications, and there is no guidance for locating a pattern that can be useful for solving a given problem. In this demo, we present an interactive web-site that provides a comprehensive overview on published work in the eld of business process modeling patterns. It allows nding publications on business process modeling patterns based on various search criteria. It is intended to be useful both for business process modeling practitioners as for researchers in need of sound literature references. Currently, this catalog (meant to be a growing resource) provides an categorization of 95 publications on patterns as well as 50 publication on anti-patterns.
The idea of publishing well-documented and proven solutions to recurring
problems in a structured way as patterns can be traced back to the work of Alexander
et al. [
Although a considerable number of papers about patterns in the area of business process modeling (BPM) have been published, it is rather di cult for a process modeler or a researcher to nd out which published patterns could be helpful in a given situation. There are two reasons for this:
First, relevant publications can be found in a great variety of proceedings, journals and web sites. For certain types of patterns, compilations of the patterns and related work can be found on the web. The most remarkable web site is http: //www.workflowpatterns.com, which is a great resource for getting familiar with a certain kind of business process model patterns. However, this site is restricted to \low-level" patterns that describe the basic building blocks that a work ow engine or process modeling language should support. Prior to our work, no single resource existed that provides an entry point for searching the full spectrum of BPM pattern papers.
And second, patterns dealing with the same topic are not named in a uni ed
way. For example, patterns dealing with adaption and change between model
variants are called change patterns [
To overcame the second problem, we suggested a taxonomy for BPM patterns
[
Once having the literature overview as well as the classi cation, it was our aim to provide a starting point for the search for business process modeling patterns that can be used by practitioners and researchers. The result { our interactive pattern catalog http://www.bpmpatterns.org { will be presented in this paper. 2
The tool is intended to serve both researchers as practitioners.
The bene t for researchers who want to get an overview over existing work is that they can easily get access to the existing literature despite the problem that di erent authors use a di erent terminology.
The same is true for people who aim to publish an own pattern paper. For this kind of publications, a paragraph \Related Patterns" is usually an important part of a pattern documentation. Our catalog provides access to these patterns and allows to put the own publication into context. While we do not recommend to use the pattern catalog as the only source for searching the literature, we are convinced that it is a good starting point to locate relevant references quickly.
The second target audience are practitioners who want to model a common situation in a good manner. For example, take the requirement to model an approval process where several roles must agree before approval will be granted. Without any doubt, this is a frequently occurring situation. It would be nice to reuse an existing solution that has been published as a pattern.
The typical way to search for such a pattern would be to use a search
engine, e.g. Google or Google Scholar with a query such as approval AND pattern
AND (workflow* OR "business process"). Unfortunately, neither of the
mentioned search engines would list the highly relevant patterns published in
\Simplifying the Design of Signature Work ow with Patterns" [
In our catalog, this paper (and others relating to model a approval process) can be found immediately by searching for \approval", as well as by searching for synonyms such as \permission", \authorization" (or \authorisation"), etc. 3
The online catalog at http://www.bpmpatterns.org provides an overview of
the published literature on BPM patterns. If possible, each entry directly links
to the original paper. There are several ways to access the catalog:
By browsing the (anti-)pattern taxonomy As can be seen in Fig. 1, the catalog is
organized by topics using a two-level taxonomy for patterns and another one for
anti-patterns. Example category names such as \Business Process Compliance",
\Role and Resource Assignment" or \Domain-dependent Content Patterns" give
an impression on the broad scope of BPM patterns.
By searching for a pattern name All publications on patterns who have got a
name can be found by entering the name in the search eld. Fig. 2 shows the
result when searching for the pattern name \Structured Loop" (which is one
of the well-known work ow patterns). The search results in Fig. 2 illustrates
a decision that has been made when selecting the literature represented in the
catalog. While the paper \Work ow Control-Flow Patterns: A Revised View"
[
Up to now, 1444 names of patterns and anti-patterns are currently included
in the catalog.
By searching for properties or keywords It is also possible to search the catalog
according to various aspects. For example, it is possible to search for patterns
that are relevant to a given modeling language only. In addition, 1064 keywords
have been manually added to the papers. This addresses the fact that in the
pattern literature it is not uncommon that di erent phrases are used for
indicating the same concepts. Fig. 3 shows the rst lines of the search results when
searching for the keyword \soundness" among the literature on anti-patterns.
It is our aim to keep the bibliography our pattern catalog up-to-date by adding
further pattern papers. Currently, the online catalog already contains references
to pattern papers that are not yet included into our literature surveys [
Therefore, we will be grateful for being informed about any new work in this area. We will be glad to add any relevant work that will be published in the future. We hope that http://www.bpmpatterns.org will become a starting point for everyone who is interested in learning about business process modeling patterns. While we hope that the catalog at http://www.bpmpatterns.org can be used in an intuitive way, a short text tutorial can be found at http://www.bpmpatterns. org/files/tutorial.pdf