Process designs for reuse

To maximize resources at design time, as much as possible, you should develop processes so that they can be initiated by other processes.

When processes are activated, they are available as services that you can initiate from other processes. When a process's service is called from another process, the called process is a subprocess.

If more than one of your business processes include a common pattern of activities, you should implement the common activities as a separate process and use it as subprocesses. The end result of calling the subprocess rather than including the common pattern of activities in each process is identical. However, when you use subprocesses, you only need to develop common patterns once.

If you are planning multiple processes at the same time, you can realize commonalities before you create the process diagrams and integrate the subprocess architecture into your plans immediately.

If you have already created a process and later realize that a new process that you are planning uses a common pattern of activities, you can implement the subprocess architecture retroactively. You can isolate the common activities from the existing process in a new process by copying. You then replace the common activities in the existing process with the subprocess's invoke operation.

Process designs for reuse

See also