This series of 3 tutorials covers the topic of Exception Handling. Put simply, Exception handling is a programming language construct or computer hardware mechanism designed to handle the occurrence of some condition (exception) that changes the normal flow of execution. In general, the current state will be saved in a predefined location and execution will switch to a predefined handler.

 

You will be shown how you can model and implement exception handling in Intalio|BPMS. The tutorial is split into three parts:

 

Part 1: How to model Exception Handling in BPMN

Part 2: Business Fault

Part 3: Technical and System Faults

 

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Part 1: Exception Handling in BPMN

 

BPMN was created to provide a simple mechanism for creating business process models, while at the same time being able to handle the complexity inherent to business processes. One example of this is BPMN's capability to inherently handle advanced modeling concepts like exception handling.

 

First lets introduce the BPMN objects that are used for Exception Handling.

 

 

 

 

 

Error End Event: This type of event indicates that a named error should be generated (triggered) as a consequence of the process ending.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Error Intermediate Event: This type of Event can only be attached to the boundary of an activity. It reacts to (catches) a named error, or to any error if a name is not specified.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exception flow: This occurs outside the Normal Flow of the Process and is based upon an Intermediate Event that occurs during the performance of the Process. When Error Intermediate Events are attached to the boundary of activities, they catch error triggers, interrupt the activity and create exception flow. These triggers could come from an Error End Event, technical fault or system fault.

One or more Tasks can be added to handle the event by attaching them to the activity boundary with the exception flow.

 

Part 2 of the series focuses on how to implement Exception handling for Business Faults. The above BPMN objects will be used to build a model and you will be shown how to add technical semantics to make this model into an executable implementation. 

 

 

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You can navigate to parts 2 and 3 of the series here:

 

Part 2: Business Fault

 

Part 3: Technical and System Faults