In our efforts for providing a professional BPMN modeling and analysis platform in the cloud, GenMyModel joined the Business Process Model and Notation Model Interchange Working Group (BPMN MIWG). In this working group, we work to ensure the smooth interchange of BPMN models between GenMyModel and other tools that implement the OMG standard. For our end users, it means the BPMN models designed with GenMyModel will easily be imported / exported with more and more BPMN tools and BPMN execution engines.
Significant improvements have already emerged from our working sessions, especially for the diagram interchange and import/export. We’ll write a blog post very soon about that. During the last web-meeting, we could see how hard all vendors work and collaborate to offer end users a strong interoperability. Obviously, these efforts contribute to the widespread use of the BPMN standard in various industries.
OMG Technical Meeting – Berlin, June 15-19th
All OMG working groups meet annualy during the OMG Technical Meeting. The next session takes places in Berlin on 15-19 June and we are happy to participate. The members of our working group will demo three scenarios of BPMN model interchange :
BPMN 2.0 Diagram Interchange
Hidden Attributes Interchange
Execution Interchange
The three live demonstrations will be broadcast via Google Hangouts and will be available on-demand on YouTube starting at 4:00 PM CEST (GMT+2) on Wednesday, June 17th at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLg1_QLHzGY. Visitors who want to attend the demonstrations, which are open to the public, should register here: http://www.omg.org/berlin-15.
Below is the official page describing the meeting. If you plan to attend the meeting if you’d like to grab a coffee with me there, drop me an email, I’d be happy to meet you there!
On the market since 2008, Planzone is an online project management software that simplifies project planning and teamwork. Constantly evolving, the R & D team at Planzone have come up with an intuitive interface that is easy for all members of a project team to use. A prime incentive of the company has been to focus on the quality of its service, a rare attribute in the world of SaaS.
Simplify the planning and follow-up of projects
Planzone allows you to organize your projects efficiently but can also be applied to your daily work. With its intuitive interface, you can easily turn your “To Do” list into a list of tasks and so have a clearer vision of how you are advancing in the planning of a project. Planzone also has a calendar where you can add as many events as you want, coordinating a centralized view of all your different projects. For more precise monitoring of each task you can view each associated time sheet.
Encourage teamwork
More than just a project management software, Planzone is a collaborative tool that encourages the participation of teams, allowing exchanges related to a project through documents, discussions and/or integrated wikis. All the different elements of a project are connected e.g.: a task can be assigned to a member, a document and a comment attached and then can be sent by email. Planzone fits seamlessly into the tools you use in your everyday work. Aside from using email, you can also import your documents from your Google Drive account and sync your calendars with Google Calendar.
Assistance Services
And lastly, our Planzone team is committed to after sales service, we offer a free demonstration of the software one-on-one, without any commitment. All the packages we offer include free telephone access and email support. The team also provides training sessions, from a personalized Workshop to the yearly Help Desk contract, helping users save time in discovering and learning how to use Planzone.
We’ve just released a major update and we’ve got plenty of developments to tell you about: we introduce the business process animation, a first step towards process simulation, model versioning and access right management. In our efforts for providing a professional BPMN modeling and analysis platform in the cloud, we joined the Business Process Model and Notation Model Interchange Working Group (BPMN MIWG) at the OMG.
Business Process Animation
There are many benefits of simulation over testing on the real world: lower relative cost of exploration, speed of scenario validation, etc. One of the simulation type is the animation of the designed business processes, essentially for validation and verification purposes.
The GenMyModel BPMN editor now integrates a live visual depiction: the user is presented with animated depiction of the business process model:
At each step of the process – events, tasks, subprocesses, gateways, etc – you can pickup a path modeled in a business process diagram, and animate it to see how it flows. With just some clicks, you find out which points in your processes contain cycles or mistaken paths.
If you’d like to read more about the benefits of process simulation and animation, see this presentation made by Denis Gagné.
Model Versioning
We gave the dashboard a make-over, introducing a built-in version control widget on your project property page. With tightly integrated version control following the schema Fix – Minor update – Major update, you can safely store all versions of your designed models with both the model information and the graphical representation (e.g. layout). All model types supported by our modeling platform – BPMN, UML, RDS, Flowchart and EMF – can be tagged. All versions are safely stored in our central repository and they can be viewed and restored at anytime.
From your dashboard, select your project and view all its versions:
Tagging a new version requires a description and a version type:
Access Right Management
Up to now all collaborators sharing a project within your organization had a full read-modify-share right and there was no way to customize the access rights with your specific roles. This major release comes with a new fine-grained right management, enabling to set the following permissions:
Admin: administrators have the same rights as the owner of the project, they can edit all the components of the project: name, description, diagrams, visibility and collaborators.
Can Modify : collaborators can edit the project contents (all diagrams) and create versions but they are not allowed to change the name, description, visibility, and the collaborator list of the project
Can View : collaborators can view the diagrams, versions and core information, but cannot make any changes. In this mode, users open diagrams in read-only mode.
Can View Versions only: The current state of the diagrams is not accessible. Collaborators can only view the released versions of the project.
In your dashboard, access rights are editable in the project property page.
BPMN Interchange: GenMyModel joins the OMG Working Group
In our efforts for providing a professional BPMN modeling and analysis platform in the cloud, we joined the Business Process Model and Notation Model Interchange Working Group (BPMN MIWG) last week. In this working group, we work to ensure the smooth interchange of BPMN models between GenMyModel and other tools that implement the OMG standard.
For our end users, it means the BPMN models designed with GenMyModel will easily be imported / exported with most of the BPMN tools. The diagram interchange already works smoothly but there are still significant improvements to be done for handling detailed attributes and extension elements. You can read our blog post about it.
As a new step of our continuous delivery process, we’ve just introduced significant improvements related to our BPMN editor: you can now model the data handled by your designed processes and make the whole project executable into Java-based execution engines, customize a wider range of BPMN 2.0 attributes, and import BPMN 2.0 models with even more flexibility.
Model Business Process Data
One of the common characteristics of traditional modeling techniques is to allow the modeling of data to be created, read and updated during the execution of a process. Although BPMN is not primarily designed for data modeling, there is still a set of notations that lets you model the data involved in a business process. In addition to this set of notation, GenMyModel introduces a dedicated data modeling editor which enables you to describe the data of your processes, so that your BPMN models are directly executable in Java-based execution engines.
The following sections respectively describe the two levels for data modeling in BPMN processes: the data object and data store at the BPMN 2.0 diagram level, and the execution level with the Java JPA implementation that can now be modeled in GenMyModel.
Design level: BPMN 2.0 Data Store and Data Object
When executing a business process, there might be data produced, either during or after the end of the process. For example, an execution of a Place Order task will produce data like invoice, receipt, purchase order etc.
BPMN does not itself provide a built-in model for describing structure of data or an Expression language for querying that data. Instead it formalizes hooks that allow for externally defined data structures and Expression languages
Those limited hooks are modeled by several types of data objects such as data objects, data inputs, data outputs and data stores. They enable data modeling at a high abstraction level.
Usually Data Objects and Data Stores are used to specifiy that some data is required from/to a database or service. But those model elements are not meant to access the data when the processes are running.
Execution level: Java JPA Entities
The Java Persistence API, POJO persistence model for object-relational mapping, is commonly used in Java-based execution engines as the programmatic layer between business code, services and databases. Through annotation on Java classes, the Java Persistence API enables one to configure the access to the data stored in relational databases.
Any BPMN model created in GenMyModel is provided with an optionnal Data Model describing the JPA entities that can be created, read and updated by the processes at execution time. The corresponding diagram is available from the project explorer:
The data model editor provides a subset of the UML class model entirely dedicated to JPA entities. The toolbar and element properties have been restricted to only cover the useful Java types. All JPA properties can be set and modified in a dedicated panel, resulting in a very intuitive data modeler.
To illustrate the time that can be saved when modeling process data rather than coding it all, here’s a JPA class called Invoice.java:
and the corresponding entity Invoice modeled in the editor:
Notice the build jar feature that generates the Java classes, compiles and jars them. The generated JAR can directly be uploaded to any Java-based execution engine supporting JPA.
Feedback: There are various Java-based BPMN engines, I put a short list below. Your feedback on any issue found when running your processes with the generated jars would be valuable to us.
All sequence flows, labels and sub processes are now correctly imported from other BPMN 2.0 tools to GenMyModel. The editor strictly handles the x and y position of the diagram elements. The hidden attributes, the advanced BPMN properties and the BPMN import have been developped and integrated in GenMyModel following the guidelines and good practices of the BPMN MIWG group, presented in the next section.
Better BPMN 2.0 Coverage
We’ve widened the coverage of the BPMN 2.0 elements in the editor. Here’s the list of the updated elements, that can now be fully edited, imported and exported:
Data Object
Data Store
Error Event
Escalation Event
Implementation in ServiceTask, Send, Receive, BusinessRule and UserTask
As a member of the OMG Model Interchange Working Group (BPMN MIWG), GenMyModel aims at supporting a wide spectrum of the BPMN 2.0 specification while ensuring the interchange with other BPMN tools and execution engines. This release update enables us to sucessfully pass 10/11 tests of the BPMN 2.0 test cases designed by the group.
The new version of our BPMN modeler released today adds a full featured Decision Model and Notation (DMN) editor with many utilities that simplify the creation of decision models.
By introducing the OMG DMN Standard which complements the BPMN process notation, GenMyModel now supports you for different stages of collaborative business modeling. The decision diagram editor will enable you to define the decisions to be made in the BPMN tasks while the decision logic tables will help you define the required decisions in sufficient detail to allow validation and automation. GenMyModel supports you for bridging the gap between the business decision design and decision implementation.
A decision diagram in GenMyModel A DMN decision table in GenMyModel
Decision diagram and table alongside BPMN
The DMN notation aims at defining manual decision making, specifying the requirements for automated decision-making and representing a complete, executable model of decision-making. If the two levels of DMN – decision requirements and decision logic – may be used independently or in conjunction to model a domain of decision-making without any reference to business processes, the DMN notation is designed to be useable alongside the standard BPMN business process notation.
Considering this practical fact, the entry point for creating a decision diagram is the business rule task:
A business rule task: entry point to create a decision diagram
Decision Requirements Diagram
The decision requirements diagram editor enables you to decompose your decisions into sub-decisions, business knowledge, input data and knowledge sources with a complete environment including the ability to collaborate with other users, to retrieve revision history, export images, etc. The intuitive GUI makes it easy and fast to sketch your decisions and drill down to the level you need.
The Decision Requirements Diagram Editor in GenMyModel
Decision Table
With the decision table, the components depicted in the decision diagram may be specified in greater detail, to capture a complete set of business rules and calculations, and to allow the decision-making to be fully automated.
Click the decision tool icon and edit the decision table live in the browser
Notice that for this first release, the decision tables can only be attached to Decisions; Knowledge Sources will follow very soon.
People using modeling tools for business process modeling usually want to “collaborate”. But what do they exactly mean? Probably more than a simple nice and well-integrated chat zone! In this post, we use the “Coordination Theory” (1) to present the six levels of interaction commonly involved when we model business processes.
Business process management requires collaborative technologies and tools to help process designers, analysts and IT people to work between them. Nothing really new, that is a fact. But it seems that this need is increasing, with new contexts as cross organizational and distributed environments.
1. “Awareness”
In the context of process – or software – modeling, awareness is anything that will help “reduce uncertainty and enable spontaneous coordination”. Browser-hosted modeling solutions have a serious adavantage for keeping all stakeholders up-to-date instantly. The real-time collaboration mode is illustrated by many Google Drive-style editors, which enable users to see and edit models simultaneously. Even if one is working from Paris and others collaborators are working from the US west coast. The workspace can also explicitly inform on who are the other members of the group, their activities, roles and other information such as responsibilities, etc.
2. “Communication”
When group members do not work at the same time or when teams are distributed, effective collaborative working sessions require communication channels. Synchronous or asynchronous chats are commonly integrated in modeling platforms with complementary features like group management and notifications. Beside diagramming, modeling tools can provide the support for sharing documents such as reports, specifications or images within the communication channels.
3. “Coordination”
Coordination is about project management. Supporting coordination implies to provide a “modeling workshop” where a Process Leader can exchange with his team about goals, tasks and schedules. The coordination is made easy through dashboards with all project and model versions, groups, collaborators and their permissions, project dependencies, metrics, etc. Jira-like tools perfectly enables coordination and the simple idea to connect a modeling platform with a good project management tool is not so bad. Project management and DMS are supported in some BPM suites.
4. “Group decision-making”
Compare and comment two versions, highlight changes, animate and visualize processes, explore alternatives… Is there a better way to associate stakeholders and make a decision? The ability to evaluate different working copies of an artefact is key to achieve decision making.
5. “Team-building”
Obviously, IT and business teams need to collaborate on processes. The perfect tool is the one that satisfies experts, analysts, architects and developers according to the respective phase they are involved in: process design, validation, simulation, execution, monitoring, reporting, etc. Collaboration in a team will not appear simply thanks to a perfect set of great dedicated features, there is also something cultural that must be taken in consideration to build an “efficient and comfortable shared workplace”. Some speak of ergonomics and design, it is not a detail.
(1) Malone and Crowston, quoted by J. Mendling, J. Recker and J. Wolf in Collaborations features in current BPM Tools, 2012
The BPMN specification presents lots of technical definitions and rules, but it does not teach you how to create process models that are effective in their primary mission – maximizing shared understanding of the as-is or to-be process. To do process modeling effectively, GenMyModel provides you a wide range of tools and features. In this post, we present 6 tips to take advantage of our BPMN design environment.
Model Repository
Starting from scratch is usually a hassle. Get a starting point by browsing the public GenMyModel BPMN model repository. There might be a good example to start with for your business. Every day as our community grows, GenMyModel user’s create public professional models, available in this hub. Fork any public BPMN diagram and adapt it to your needs. IT people always bootstrap their code. Why don’t you bootstrap your process designs using our model repository?
Animate your process
We all know that a “process design” is also a “communication support” and it’s sometimes difficult to share ideas and discuss about a complex static model. GenMyModel offers you the opportunity to animate the designed processes. You can “play” the process, start and stop it or use this feature as a very simple visual demo. Read more about GenMyModel process animation.
Model your decision rules
GenMyModel now supports you for different stages of collaborative business modeling. The decision diagram editor enables you to define the decisions to be made in the BPMN tasks while the decision logic tables helps you define the required decisions in sufficient detail to allow validation and automation. GenMyModel is one of the first BPMN tools implementing a professional DMN editor.
Tags & Versions
Creating tags and versions – just as you would for a software program – is the easiest way to manage and secure your work. GenMyModel enables you to safely store all versions of your designed models with both the model information and the graphical representation (e.g. layout). All model can be tagged with a description and a version type. All versions are kept in our servers and they can be viewed and restored at anytime. Retrieve old versions to better understand the changes that occurred in your business processes. Read more about BPMN model versioning.
Real time edition and chat
To be more effective across teams, you might design your business processes collaboratively. Need to organize a modeling session with your teammates? You should try the first cloud-based BPMN 2.0 modeler integrating a Google Drive-style real time edition. You can also use the chat for smooth interactions. At anytime, you know who is in the workplace and what tasks your teammates are working on. Professional modeling works may require secure accesses and the modification of critical models. In this case, create an organization within GenMyModel, invite collaborators and manage their rights. Read more about access right management in GenMyModel.
Model processes and data handled by processes
A complete business application needs to be built with processes and data. Did you know that GenMyModel is one of the first tools providing data modeling – within a BPMN project – in the cloud? No need to switch from one tool to another, you get all the modeling artefacts at the same place. This can help you bridge the gap between the business teams and the IT teams. Read our blog post about data modeling in our BPMN modeler.
There are many impressive blogs on business processes and modeling.
Here are some of our favorites (in no particular order).
BPMN Leader
“BPM Leader is the expert network and community site where you can find the latest insights, ideas and best practices on Business Process Management (BPM), Workflow Automation, Case Management (ACM), Lean Six Sigma (LSS), Change Management and related domains.” bpmleader.com
BPTrends
“Paul Harmon and Celia Wolf launched Business Process Trends in 2003 to provide a comprehensive, reliable and unbiased source of information relating to trends, directions and best practices in Business Process.” bptrends.com
Business Process Watch
“Bruce Silver Associates has been in business since 1994, providing consulting, training, industry analysis, and publishing focused on business process management. The blog, until recently called BPMS Watch, covers BPM technology and BPMN tools, training, and practice.” brsilver.com
Bpmn Institute
“BPMInstitute.org is a practitioner-led community of BPM professionals in the world, with over 50,000 members. Member services include training and certification, BPM events, a wide range of vendor-neutral BPM and related content, as well as face-to-face and online networking.” bpminstitute.org
Business Process Incubator
“The Business Process Incubator (BPI) is an online resource provided by Trisotech with the goal of sparking to life the promises of Business Process Management (BPM).” businessprocessincubator.com
Column 2
“About BPM, Enterprise 2.0 and technology trends in business – Sandy Kemsley is an independent analyst and systems architect, specializing in business process management, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise architecture and business intelligence.“ column2.com
Bpm.com
“For over 9 years, BPM.com has been the Internet’s leading destination for articles, news, research and white papers on Business Process Management, Process Modeling, Business Rules, and Case Management.” bpm.com
Import your Visio Models in GenMyModel Cloud BPMN Modeler
Many companies use MS Visio to visualize their business processes. Some of them have recently started to use GenMyModel to close the gap between a drawing and a valid BPMN 2.0 model. We received hundreds of requests for supporting the import of BPMN models designed with Visio. Reasons are ordered as follows: modern UI/UX, great collaborative features, process validation and simulation.
We are pleased to announce that we now support VISIO Import (for English diagrams). Since we launched our BPMN Editor in March 2015, more and more users asked us to accelerate in this way. That’s done. It’s now very easy to import all your modeling assets in our cloud platform.
You will never have to recreate old Visio documents; 3 clicks from GenMyModel platform and your drawings are translated into compliant BPMN models.
You will benefit from the power of a model for the price of a drawing… Start using new features you only have in a real modeling tool : “Process validation”, “Process Animation”, etc …
It’s now easier than ever to upload all your works in a cloud-based platform. You will be able to share models in seconds, to easily collaborate with your teammates (even in real time if necessary).
Improve and facilitate your day-to-day work by trying a “central model repository” to store all models you need and to manage rights for your teams.
Note that the GenMyModel Visio Import is based on the 2013 version of Visio (.vsdx files). This feature is currently in Beta, feel free to report any issues about your specific imports. We love your feedback.
Others improvements in the GenMyModel BPMN Editor
Team working is playing a key role in plenty of organizations and the real time collaboration is not a nice-to-have feature for them. That’s why we worked hard to make it more efficient than ever. The real-time execution gains stability and rapidity.
BPM professionals need tools to better handle large models and that’s why we added the ability to move an entire model using the mouse – and its scroll button – for having a quick look of an other part of the model (without using the bar). You can instantly get a better overview of your multiple pools, lanes and tasks and handle complexity. We also released the automatic expansion of the canvas that can be activated when needed. Hope that will help.
After the recent release of the BPMN Visio Import, GenMyModel continues to evolve for bringing you more traceability, performance and flexibility. The latest release update includes a new professional PDF export, the redesign of the model history browser and the drag and drop of model elements within the project explorer. These improvements bring a significant efficiency gain for teams working on large projects.
Share Beautiful PDF reports
We knew that was one of GenMyModel’s weaknesses. Now the PDF export has been beautified, well, I don’t see any weaknesses anymore. Kidding aside, moving from Jasper to Asciidoctor for generating PDFs gave us more flexibility for delivering readable PDF reports when your UML / BPMN includes tens of elements. The dev team refactored the following:
For UML class diagrams, the PDF contains one chapter per package
For all other diagrams, the PDF contains one chapter per diagram
Numerous anchors now facilitate the navigation between sections
The result for BPMN 2.0 PDF reports is compelling:
Easily Organize Large Models from the Project Explorer
The project explorer now lets you move UML model elements from containers. For example a UML class can be moved into another package without opening the diagram. This is typically time saving when you want to re-order attributes and operations of a UML class. Another use case illustrated below is when you have plenty of diagrams related to the same class and you’d like this class to another package, this change being applied to all diagrams referring the element.
Move class Utilities from package Account to Domain directly from the project explorer.
Browse and Play Revisions with the new History Widget
The new history widget enables you to better navigate to the different versions of the models, right from the model editor. It creates more value for collaborative projects as you can track any changes made on a model and revert it when necessary. Stability and performance have been considerably improved with this new release. You can also smoothly play the scene of the modifications made on the model. Playing the history – like a video – usually help stakeholders understand the final state of a model. The new revision history widget includes:
The username of the collaborator who made the command, ie. the atomic modification. If your model is shared accross teams, you can quickly see who modified the model
The modification date
The unique ID of the command
The restore button to restore back your model to the selected version
We are pleased to announce that we have just released a new version of GenMyModel. This version brings many improvement to both the GenMyModel Dashboard and the Editor.
What’s New in the Dashboard?
We have changed a few things on the dashboard to improve user experience.
Home Screen
When you arrive on the dashboard, you used to have to choose what universe you wanted to work in. Recent projects were accessible but a little hidden on the side. We changed that, you have now directly access to the two most important information:
Your most recent projects, with a button to open them directly in the editor.
Recent activity, to see at a glance who recently worked on your projects.
Recent projects on the new Dashboard home
New Project Creation
In the previous version project creation was accessible through several buttons depending on your intent (importing a model, creating a blank one, reversing…). We improved on this and streamlined the creation process. Just select “Create a Project”, select the type of the model and all the project creation options will be displayed for this particular model type.
The project creation modal
Project Management
The projects list now shows projects from all model types by default. A quick filter is available to filter the list by type in case you want to focus on a certain type. We also improve the design to the show project description within the list and added a quick access link to access the project public page (for public projects).
New style for the project list
Explore Public Models
GenMyModel is also a community of passionate modelers, all the public models are available to browse and improve upon on our public repository. The repository used to be quite separated from the dashboard, preventing users from easily discovering interesting models. To make things more convenient you can now explore, search and clone all the public models directly from the dashboard in the “Explore” tab.
What’s New in the Editor?
We have added a few features to the editor.
Copy/Paste between Projects
It’s now possible to Copy/Paste elements between different projects of the same type (with the exception of BPMN). Copy/Paste between projects works just as you would expect, select some elements on your diagrams, press ctrl+C (or cmd+C if you are on a Mac), open any of your other projects, press ctrl+V (or cmd+V), and all the elements will be pasted over. The clipboard is now also resilient, it is saved in your browser local storage and will remain if you close your browser and reopen it later.
Copy/Pasting elements between two different projects
Documentation Everywhere
When collaborating on models documentation is of the utmost importance. The documentation field used to be hidden at the bottom of object properties, which was not ideal. We removed it from there, and created a tab just for it next to the object properties. You can now easily document elements without having to scroll endlessly. Documentation of model elements is also inserted when you export your model to PDF.
The new documentation panel
Custom Model Elements Properties
With GenMyModel you are not just doing drawings but real models that you can use to generate code or anything you wish. Until now the editor was lacking a consistent way to add custom properties to model elements, you could use the documentation field, but that really wasn’t ideal. We are pleased to announce that we have added the ability to add custom properties to any model elements. All the custom properties are accessible from your custom generators.
The new custom properties panel
Improvements
A lot of the work was also done under the hood to improve performance and reliability.
Perfect Positioning
In some cases, the position of labels on segments could shift by a few pixels between the client and the server, this was caused by the size of elements that could be different on both side due to the diversity of browser configuration. We reviewed the whole system to make it more reliable, and now positioning is perfect, every time.
Graphic Performance Boost
We strive to provide our users with the most enjoyable and smoothest experience we can. Resizing lanes on BPMN could sometime feel a little slow, we have worked on that and it’s now just as smooth to resize as the rest of the elements.
Transparent Resynchronization
There are time when your connection to the Internet can get spotty and if you are disconnected too long desynchronization can occur. In that case the editor used to loose your context like the list of opened diagrams and your scroll position. Now, when such event occurs, the editor recovers gracefully and the resynchronization is almost transparent.
We are proud to bring you this new release and hope that you will enjoy all the new features and improvements. Feel free to comment to tell us what you think about these new features!
The GenMyModel transformations repository grows again with the addition of a new code generator for UML. This time, Ruby is the shining star. The new generator tries to cover as much as possible of the semantic you add in your class diagram.
What this generator can produce? First thing, it deals with class diagrams and gives to you the Ruby representation of the system you’ve designed. Here is a list of our Ruby code generator features:
one file per package is created
inner packages are generated as modules (using modules as namespace)
class
inheritance
interface (generated as module)
interface realization (as include)
attribute/associations using these rules:
[no readonly – no static] attributes uses attr_accessor
[readonly – no static] attributes uses attr_reader
[readonly – static] attributes are generated as ‘CONSTANTS’
[no readonly – static] attributes are generated as ‘@@attribute’
if attribute cardinality is [x..*] -> the attribute is init as a list (can be changed)
initialize method is generated following these rules:
if no initialize is found, but there is attribute -> an initialize is generated
if many initialize is found -> initialize with the greatest number of arguments is generated
if initialize parameter name x matches an attribute name -> @x = x is generated
if the class inherits from another one which owns an initialize -> a super() call is generated with the good arguments number
operations generation follows these rules:
operation body returns nothing by default (can be changed)
operations returning Boolean are postfixed by a ? if their name does not include it (can be changed)
comments in an Asciidoc format (format can be changed)
require_relative are generated for the root.rb file: {your_model_name}.rb
indentation is two spaces (no tabs)
You can find this generator in the Generators tab:
The generator in our sample generator repository
And here is a small example that will shows part of the generator feature:
Small Model Example
This example defines two classes with a bunch of attributes. The MyModule package contains a Config class which owns two static attributes: one is read-only and the other is not. For the Shape class, only the id attribute is read-only. The two classes Shape and Square define initialize operation with parameters.
Here is my_module.rb (note the auto-snake_case translation the generator performed).
module MyModule
class Config
MY_KEY = ""
@@MY_OTHER_KEY = ""
# static accessors
def self.MY_OTHER_KEY
@@MY_OTHER_KEY
end
end
end
The package had been translated into a module and the class had been placed into. The two attributes have been generated according to their semantic (i.e, static and/or read-only).
And here is the model.rb generated file:
require_relative 'my_module'
class Shape
attr_accessor :x, :y, :config
attr_reader :id
def initialize(x, y)
@id = 0
@x = x
@y = y
@config = nil
end
end
module Shape2D
def area
end
def perimeter
end
end
class Square < Shape
include Shape2D
attr_accessor :z
def initialize(x, y, z)
super(x, y)
@z = z
end
end
You can see that the classes have been ordered by “ineritance”. The Shape class defines an initialize method, so it uses it and the binding between parameters and attribute have been automatically generated. We can observe the same thing for the Square class. Moreover, the initialize method has an explicit call to super() and parameters are directly passed to it.
Obviously, you can copy this generator and modify it as you want (it is released under MIT License). The produced code is simple “vanilla” Ruby, but the generator can be modified to match some dedicated Ruby framework. We hope it will help you in your futur developments!
Hi GenMyModel lovers! We are pleased to announce a new GenMyModel release. What’s new? In short: UML templates, movable links, flowchart improvements, history improvements and custom avatars. Let’s describe each point!
UML Templates
One of the most expected feature was the ability to create UML templates. For a lot of programming language like Java, generic classes are essential if you want to generate some code from your models. We are proud to announce that GenMyModel now supports adding template parameters to a class or an interface. You can also manage template parameters in the property panel of the templated element. Finally you can bind elements to templates using the template binding tool.
An example of a UML template to create a list of string
The UML templates specification is not as simple as it may seem. And to simplify we will soon add the possibility to automatically bind a typed element to a template (like in Java when you instantiate a generic type).
One little tip: if you want to quickly create a template that has a parameter with a binding you can directly use the template binding tool. Select the bounded element as the source and the template as the target. If the target is not already a template, it will be converted into a template and a template parameter will be automatically added to it.
Move Your Links
Sometimes when you build your models, mistakes can happen. One of the most common one is to create an association between two objects only to notice later that either the target or the source is wrong. Before you had to delete the link, create a new one, and reset the label and other properties. There is now a faster and better way, you can drag and drop the ends of a link! This works for BPMN2 flows, UML Associations and inheritance links and Flowchart segments.
Moving a flow from a task to another in BPMN editor
Flowchart Improvements
The Flowchart editor was released a few years ago and needed a refresh. New tools have been added to shapes in order to quickly create shapes and flows from an existing one. You can now almost create your entire Flowchart models without ever using the toolbar!
Flowchart tools around an action
History Player Improvements
The history has also been improved in order to replay more actions done on your project. This can be useful if you want to restore a previous version or if you just want to check actions that have been done in the past. Don’t hesitate to play with it!
New History Player
Change Your Avatar
Another feature that you asked for, is the ability to change your avatar. You can now go to the settings page in your dashboard to change it. Note that if you logged in with a social network, you will be able to choose between each service.
When we started GenMyModel 5 years ago, we had a vision. We wanted to make modeling tools accessible and easy to use for everyone. No more clunky setup, no more fiddling around with file versions.
On August 2012, we launched the public beta of the world’s first real-time collaborative web modeler. This first version only supported UML class diagrams. We kept working on the product, adding features, UML diagrams and improving user experience.
On December 2014, we released our first paid plans. Those plans allowed our users to get a certain number of private projects. At that time GenMyModel still only supported UML.
We introduced several new editors (BPMN2, JPA, Database, Flowchart, EMF and DMN). Some of those new editors got specific features, like process animation for BPMN2.
With all these changes, our old pricing designed solely for UML didn’t fit anymore. Users that use BPMN are different than the one that use UML. It didn’t seem fair to make every user pay for all our products if they only needed part of the platform.
Introducing Our New Pricing
Today, we are introducing a new pricing on GenMyModel. We worked hard to make the new plans as flexible as our platform.
The New Plans
New Plans
We have created 3 new plans:
Pro: For individuals
Team: For teams, up to 4 users
Enterprise: For enterprises
They are highly customizable, you pay only for the number of users and the options you need. When you subscribe you can choose one or several options:
UML (Including JPA and EMF)
Database (RDS)
BPMN2
Flowchart
For Team and Enterprise plans, you will also be able to select the number of users you wish to include in your plans. Each user will have it’s own personal GenMyModel account. All users on the same plan can collaborate and share projects among each others.
What about Legacy plans?
The new pricing will only apply to new subscriptions or subscription changes. If you are already subscribed, nothing will change for you. You’ll keep your current plan, with its price, limits and features until you choose to unsubscribe.
Changes to the Free plan
As we worked to redesign our plans, we also looked into improving our Free plan. The Free plan used to be quite limited. It only allowed for 20 objects to be created in any given model.
We changed that for a complexity based approach. Now only the main elements in your diagrams are taken into account. In UML for example, attributes and operations are now no longer counted towards the limit. This allows you to design models for real use-cases, letting you try our platform fully before committing.
If you reach the limit on one of your models, you will still be able to make modifications to it, but you won’t be able to add more elements. This way you can clone any model from our public repository and play with it, even on the Free plan.
It’s the end of another year, and it’s time for a recap of 2016. This year, lots of things changed at GenMyModel. We introduced new Plans and kept improving our platform. Even in the last few month, we’ve added a lot of features to the editor. Let’s take a moment to introduce you to them.
Global Improvements
Being a global modeling platform provides huge benefits for our users. A lot of features that we develop improve our global platform and are available for every model type.
New Documentation Editor
Well documenting your models is considered a good practice. Up until now, we provided a basic editor for documentation. It did the job, but we thought it wasn’t quite up to the high standards of quality we set for our platform.
That is why we introduced a new Documentation Editor.
The new Documentation Editor
It is based on the open source editor CK Editor. It provides a lot of nice features:
Text formatting
Text color
Spell checking
Code snippets
Pasting from Word
Tables
Lists and numbered lists
We save your documentation as HTML in the model, ensuring easy reuse. For example, we provide UML and BPMN PDF report generation. Your model elements documentation is included in them with preserved formatting.
Overview
Having an effective collaborative modeling tool means your diagrams can become very big, very fast. You can always zoom out to get a global view of your diagram. But zooming out, and in, again and again, isn’t really convenient.
We took a look at the issue and decided to add an Overview of your current diagram to the Editor.
Overview on a Flowchart Diagram
The Overview let you keep an eye on your whole diagram easily. It displays a simplified version of your diagram. It’s zoom level automatically adjust to display your whole diagram.
A rectangle shows you on which part of you are diagram you are working. You can drag and drop it to quickly move in your diagram.
Better Elements Alignment
Since it’s inception GenMyModel element positioning was based on a grid. While grid is an easy positioning solution, it is not really convenient to use.
GenMyModel now supports aligning elements relatively to each other.
When you move an element, magnetic blue lines will appear to guide you. These lines help you align element centers or sides quickly. This also works when you create an element using the quick tools around the elements.
Quickly snap elements to place
With this feature, you can get a nicely organized diagram in seconds.
Performance Improvements on Huge Models
As always we also kept improving performance on big models. The editor loads faster on them, and moving elements around should be snappier.
BPMN Modeling
Sub-Process Diagram
Our online BPMN modeler gained a great addition. It is now possible to attach a diagram to a Sub-Process in your diagram.
To do this, simply select your Sub-Process and click on the wrench. A new diagram will open, the root of this diagram will be your Sub-Process.
Create a Sub-Process Diagram
In the future to reopen this diagram, simply reselect your Sub-Process and click on the wrench. The same diagram will open.
Convert Selection to a Sub-Process
It’s possible to easily convert a selection to an open Sub-Process.
Select all the item you wish to include in this open Sub-Process. Then right click on any of them and select “Convert to Sub-Process.”
Easily convert a selection to an open Sub-Process
Create a Node on a Sequence Flow
While you are modeling, it might happen that you forget to insert a task B between two tasks A and C.
You could, of course, delete the sequence flow between A and C, create your task B, then link A and B and B and C. But this sounds like a lot of steps for such a simple task.
Well, now you can do better. Simply select the task tool, and click on the flow between A and C. This will automatically create your task B and link A to B and B to C.
Relational Database (RDS)
RDS Indexes
A new feature was also added to our RDS modeling tool.
When designing your RDS, you want not only to think about the structure but also the performance. Indexes let you give direction to your SQL engine to improve that performance.
This very important part of RDS modeling has now been added to our RDS tool.
So how to create indexes on your Table? It’s super easy.
Select any table in your diagram. Then in the property panel, click on the “Add index” button. A new index appears. You can change its name, and add columns to it with autocompletion.
An Index on a Table
Couldn’t be more straightforward right?
RDS Indexes SQL Generation
When you make a model on GenMyModel, you are not creating a simple drawing. GenMyModel understands the underlying model behind your diagrams.
We can then provide you with one click SQL generation. GenMyModel currently supports generating SQL online for:
MySQL
Oracle
PostgreSQL
SQL Server
We have improved all those code generators to integrate Indexes.
If you wish to you can duplicate and customize any of the provided generators to suit your needs. All of this directly from your browser of course. Your custom generators will also be available to any collaborator in your Organization.
This ends our recap. We will keep working hard in 2017 to take your favorite modeling tool to the next level. We have a lot of projects for this year, so stay tuned and make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
The whole GenMyModel team wishes you a happy new year!
Faster export, BPMN In Color, Data Representation…and more!
Today’s GenMyModel Update will blow your mind. We are faster, more precise, more flexible, and all this in a totally new style. Let’s discover our improvements together:
Faster export with a new export engine
We know your time is valuable. Remember when image export could take you several seconds? Well, this time is over. Now it is instantaneous, and procedure is still the same.
Instant Export
PDF report generation goes faster too.
Elaborate models with BPMN In Color
BPMN In Color standard compliance will assure you clearer process diagrams. No matter how complex your model seems to be, master every detail by customizing border/text and background color separately to suit each one of your needs and tastes.
Color Your Blocks
Moreover, your GenMyModel models will keep their colors if you export them to any editor that supports BPMN In Color.
Flexibility with .docx documentation
The automatic report is complete, but you wish to personalize a description, to be more specific on an interaction, to insert a personal detail, to put the focus on a process? GenMyModel made it possible : simply export your report in .docx and freely edit it in Microsoft Word.
.docx documentation
More power with Data Representation in BPMN
A process relies on data. Have you ever dreamt of a world where you could describe underlying data inside your BPMN model? We know you have, and we have heard you. Indeed you can now create JPA data model inside your BPMN. Our tool lets you bind your DataStore/DataObject to JPA Entities in just a few steps.
More organization with our overview tool
As you have discovered it by reading our last article, we provide a Overview Tool to help you navigate in your most complex models. Our new colorful version is more realistic and available on all types of models.
Overview
More style with our new website
Discover clearer pages with relevant videos, fabulous screenshots, more information, and intuitive pictograms. The homepage shows you the evolution of GenMyModel’s community, and highlight the new articles of our blog.
GenMyModel’s Community
Find all our products and their respective pricing in the top menu. You will notice that 2 new model types are coming soon: DMN and Archimate.
What’s new in the menu?
We will explain everything to you in our next article. Stay aware of its release by following us on social networks.
ArchiMate* has finally arrived on your favorite online platform! Naturally, as our UML, Database, and BPMN modelers, ArchiMate comes with the Central Model Repository, the Google Drive Style Collaboration, Smart Controllers, and the All Format Export. GenMyModel presents you its new editor!
*ArchiMate is a registered trademark of The Open Group
Mesure Decision Impacts with ArchiMate
Save the world, adopt pandas, plant trees… We are sure you have wonderful goals for your enterprise, but you have to follow a structure to reach them. ArchiMate 3.0 is a visual language that will map the relations between the Business, Application, and Technology Layers of your enterprise.
ArchiMate
Use this application to highlight the impact of actions, according to dependencies between objects, concepts, and users.
Foresee what applications you and your team workers will need in their future missions.
Highlight to your employees causes and consequences of their tasks on your global plan.
GenMyModel respects ArchiMate 3.0 standards and its library offers about fifty shapes and links. Try it now!
ArchiMate Toolbar
Gain in Compatibility with our BPMN Converter
Our BPMN tool counts 2 types of diagrams: Process Diagram & Collaboration Diagram. When you create a Process Diagram in your GenMyModel Editor, you work on one participant’s business process whereas a Collaboration Process represents multiple participants with “Pools”. One of GenMyModel’s goals is to make you save time, so if you start a Process Diagram, and then wish to include other Pools, our editor will automatically convert your model into a Collaboration Diagram.
Conversion of a Process Diagram into Collaboration Diagram
Have you used an other BPMN modeler than GenMyModel? It’s okay, we won’t be sad, because we know you are on board now. You inspire us so much we even improved our editor. So guess what? Even if you worked on a tool that doesn’t automatically correct your BPMN models as we do, you can still import them on your GenMyModel’s account and GenMyModel will take care of converting your diagrams into Collaboration Diagrams or Process Diagrams in function of its type.
+ Bug fixes and improvements
Don’t forget to follow us on our different social networks to be aware of our next articles! See you soon on GenMyModel’s blog, and see you sooner on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+!
Your company is dealing with Unsatisfied Customers or Lack of Motivation from your Employees? We are here to help you point out where do these issues come from. Are your production processes fully efficient? Do you have access to an entire overview of your
business processes? Do your employees know what are their role at a company scale? Are your clients frequently asking for more security and visibility about the solutions you offer them?
All you need is to remove the blur of your business organization. All you need is a Business Process Graphical Representation.
1) Valid Model with the Standardized BPMN 2 Language
Obtain a Valid Representation of your Business Processes by letting your stakeholders use a simple editor that respects all the BPMN 2.0 Standards, such as BPMN Collaborative Diagram, BPMN Process Diagram, and more, even drafts of standards, such as BPMN In Color. Our intuitive platform is designed for both beginners & experts.
BPMN In Color
2) Collaborative Editor
Working in team is the key to success! Every one of your dear employees can help you improve your Business Processes, joining your Business Architects and your Business Analysts work. So give them the perfect Collaborative Modeling Tool for effective Team Working thanks to our Collaborative Business Process Diagram & Analysis Modeler.
BPMN Collaborative Editor
3) Central Repository & Versioning
Access to every versions of a business process diagram without spamming your team that are working on it. Simply use our Google Drive Style Centralized Repository that allows you to see in real time the Latest Saved Versions, the Minor Versions and the Major Versions of your model.
Central Repository & Versioning
4) Dynamic Presentation with our Animated Scenario Feature
Dreaming of anticipating costs, delays, and resources? All you need is a Dynamic Step-by-step Animation Tool. Follow the scenario of your processes by simulating decisions and events on your model.
BPMN Animation
GenMyModel is the Leading Online Modeler. Start creating the different Pools of Participants in your first Collaborative Diagram right away:
– Tele-working Employees – Mobile Addicts – On-travel Stakeholders – Managers stuck in the Cloud
Because with:
– the Central Repository – the Right of Collaboration Management – the Shareable Workspace – the Social Network Sign Up
You can:
– Enjoy Unlimited Space – Find Inspiration from Existing Public Projects – Access your Account from Anywhere
For:
– Project Builders – Managers – Apprentices
Because with:
– BPMN 2 Standards Compliance – the GenMyModel R&D Team -> the Animated Scenario Feature – the GenMyModel Business Suite (BPMN + DMN + Archimate + Flowchart)
You can:
– Get Compliance with other editors – Dynamically Introduce Entirely Innovative Processes – Benefit an Up-To-Date Modeler – Use a Unique Complete Business Platform to design Business Strategies, Business Process & Decision Tabs
GenMyModel is the most complete & powerful Business Platform in the Cloud to transform ideas into actions. Start modeling right away:
Want to learn more about Archimate? You may be interested in reading this article “Ready to boost your Business Strategy?” which is about our Archimate Technology.
Have you ever draw a scheme of how your company works on a Drawing Software, on a Graphic Application, or even on a piece of paper? Want to take your company to the next level? You could use an official business process language to go further than a drawing!
With BPMN 2 Standards, measure your current activity, capture the evolution of your processes & control innovative productivity.
So let’s see in 4 points why starting to learn & manipulate Business Process Management Standards is the good strategy to adopt.
More Unity implies More Efficient Co-workers
Use the Same Language
Respecting Standards will help you understand each other in your company. This way:
It will be easier to explain to your stakeholders what their missions are;
You will be able to have more productive & technical conversations with your Business Analysts;
Your employees will be on the same page to work following the same direction, respecting the values & the identity of your company.
More Automatic Work implies More Time for Human
Use the Language Your Computer Understands
Future is not about working like a machine. Future is about our skill to work with machines. With BPMN 2 Standards, conversing with your computer is possible. Use our XMI File Export Feature to:
Execute & Automate Processes;
Eliminate Manual Keying of Data.
Solid Bases implies More Innovation
Use the Language your Future You will Use Too
How do you innovate? By first drawing a report about the current situation. You then study what could be better, faster, easier,… Modeling in BPMN 2 Language means:
Documenting the Past Evolutions of your Processes for the Future Innovations;
Highlighting how you could get Better Results Faster & More Flexibly.
Following Models implies Acquiring More Knowledge & More Power
Use a Language Experts have Settled
BPMN In Color, Process Diagrams, Collaborative Diagrams, Gateways, Pools… GenMyModel assures you total compliance because it respects BPMN 2 Standards, keeping its platform up-to-date thanks to our computing talents. Our Team guarantees you:
An Intuitive Navigation;
An Ergonomic Workspace;
A Good-Looking Design.
So let’s start together to bring Performance & Innovation to your Company with GenMyModel, the Leading Online Modeling Platform than has full Compliance with BPMN 2 Standards:
