Associations

Link between activity and artifact is established by association.

An Association does not have a specific mapping to an execution language element. These objects and the Artifacts they connect to provide additional information for the reader of the BPMN Diagram, but do not directly affect the execution of the Process.

Typically, you will insert the association using TWE's Graph component (although it is possible to do it through the property panels).

Graph component allows you to chose between directional , non-directional and bi-directional association for the insertion.

If insertion of the association is not allowed by some rules (e.g. you can't insert two associations connecting the same artifact and activity, or you can't insert association between two artifacts or two activities), graph component will simply deny to insert such association.

Here is the table of transition attributes:

Table 6.21. Association

NameM/ODescription
IdMUsed to identify the Transition.
NameOText used to identify association.
SourceMDetermines the source of an Association (Activity or Artifact Identifier).
TargetMDetermines the target of an Association (Activity or Artifact Identifier).
Association directionMThe direction for association, possible values: None, To, From, Both

Picture on the right shows a dialog for editing Association attributes.

You can change association source/target attributes by chosing another from the combo-boxes. There is a link next to those combo boxes to navigate to the selected Activity/Artifact.