Acceptable Actors to use in a BPMN diagram?

Question

I'm trying to model a User Account creation process whereby an Admin goes about creating a new User Account.

Is it acceptable to have Actors who are of a different type in a BPMN/Swim Lane diagram?

So for example, the Actors in this case are 'Client Administrator' and 'Software Portal System'.

My ex manager says you're not supposed to mix an 'Actor' who is the person performing an activity with an Actor of a different type (i.e. software system).

I, of course, think he is wrong as I've seen BPMN diagrams with a human Actor and software/hardware systems interfacing each other before.

i.e. here: http://blog.joget.org/2012/04/joget-workflow-v3-part-1-process-design.html

I'm looking for guidance from the Stakeoverlow brains trust.

Thanks!

Any reason as to why this has been downvoted? I think this is a perfectly reasonable question. Thanks. — JackSparrow123
I don't understand what you mean by "different type in a BPMN/Swim Lane diagram". Could you create an example diagram for that rather than linking some weird diagrams in a blog? — qwerty_so
Example Actors: Payroll Consultant, Super Administrator, Payroll Software Product — JackSparrow123
So is the question whether the above can go in a single diagram in different lanes? — qwerty_so

Gerd Wagner Gerd Wagner · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-09T10:44:46

BPMN provides Pools for modeling actors, which represent roles, like 'Client Administrator', or specific agents such as organizations (like Amazon in processes involving Amazon) or IT systems.

The BPMN 2.0 specification (in 9.2 Pool and Participant on p. 112) says:

A Pool is the graphical representation of a Participant in a Collaboration. A Participant can be a specific PartnerEntity (e.g., a company) or can be a more general PartnerRole (e.g., a buyer, seller, or manufacturer).

Acceptable Actors to use in a BPMN diagram?

2 Answers