Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)

Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)

Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a graphical representation for specifying the business process in a business process model.
BPMN was developed by Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI) and Is currently maintained by the Object Management Group. The latest version of BPMN is 2.0. Business Process Modeling Notation is a graphical representation for specifying the business process in a business process model.
BPM technology not only makes it easier for developers and analysts to model, implement and optimize a business process, but also makes it possible for operations and management to analyze the efficiency of the business process, and be informed of problems.
Elements:
The modeling in BPMN is made by simple diagrams with a small set of graphical elements. It should make it easy for business users as well as developers to understand the flow and the process. The four basic categories of elements are as follows:
Flow Objects
Events, Activities, Gateways
Connecting Objects
Sequence Flow, Message Flow, Association
Swimlanes
Pool, Lane
Artifacts
Data Object, Group, Annotation

The latest version of BPMN 2.0 (which is in beta) supports a formal met model for BPMN constructs and important constructs like conversations for correlating two processes , event handling (for suppresses and non interrupting events) and transactions and compensations.
Tools:
Seam Framework
This support jBPM for BPMN is an intuitive and powerful solution for enterprise applications with complex human collaboration, or web applications with complex user interactions.
Seam deeply integrates jBPM and makes it incredibly simple to use jBPM for task management or pageflow, and is a great way to get started with BPM technology. The combination of Seam and jBPM can shrink development time of some kinds of projects by literally months for more details please refer http://seamframework.org/Seam2