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Feature Development in BPMN-Based Process-Driven Applications

  • Conference paper
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Business Process Management Forum (BPM 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 392))

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Abstract

In the context of Continuous Software Engineering, it is acknowledged as best practice to develop new features on the mainline rather than on separate feature branches. Unfinished work is then usually prevented from going live by some kind of feature toggle. However, there is no concept of feature toggles for Process-Driven Applications (PDA) so far. PDAs are hybrid systems consisting not only of classical source code but also of a machine-interpretable business process model. This paper elaborates on a feature development approach that covers both the business process model and the accompanying source code artifacts of a PDA. The proposed solution, Toggles for Process-Driven Applications (T4PDA), equipped with an easy to use modeling tool extension, enables the developer to safely commit unfinished work on model and source code to the project’s mainline. It will be kept inactive during productive deployments unless the feature is finally released. During an AB/BA crossover design experiment, the T4PDA approach, including the provided tool support, showed higher software quality, a faster development process, and contented developers.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The plugin is available at https://git.fh-muenster.de/winfo/code-pro/t4pda.

  2. 2.

    https://git-scm.com/.

  3. 3.

    Six sequence flows, five tasks, three events, and one gateway.

  4. 4.

    Twenty-one sequence flows, eight tasks, seven gateways, and three events.

  5. 5.

    https://git.fh-muenster.de/winfo/code-pro/t4pda/-/tree/master/experiment.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Münster University of Applied Sciences, Münster, Germany

    Konrad Schneid & Sebastian Thöne

  2. University of Münster, Münster, Germany

    Herbert Kuchen

Authors
  1. Konrad Schneid
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  2. Sebastian Thöne
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  3. Herbert Kuchen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Konrad Schneid .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Dirk Fahland

  2. FBK-irst, Trento, Italy

    Chiara Ghidini

  3. University of Muenster, Münster, Germany

    Jörg Becker

  4. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Marlon Dumas

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Schneid, K., Thöne, S., Kuchen, H. (2020). Feature Development in BPMN-Based Process-Driven Applications. In: Fahland, D., Ghidini, C., Becker, J., Dumas, M. (eds) Business Process Management Forum. BPM 2020. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 392. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58638-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58638-6_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-58637-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-58638-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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