Applying Pattern-Based Graphical Validation Rules to Business Process Models

Business Process Models (BPMs) are widely used for documentation and (model driven) software development. Due to the increasing complexity of BPMs automated checking is unavoidable to ensure the quality of BPMs. This requires formal specification methods that address high level (domain-specific) requirements (e.g. Compliance) in a manner that is comprehensible for stakeholders without mathematical background and provide a high level of generalizability. In previous publications we conceptually introduced the G-CTL notation for formal graphical validation rules, tackling these issues. Based on G-CTL, we present a pattern based specification and matching mechanism for such graphical validation rules. We describe the mapping of the graphical G-CTL rules into textual CTL instances for the particular BPM to be checked. Moreover, the approach enhances the generalizability by supporting the abstraction from concrete names of elements in BPMs and it´s application is not limited to a particular BPM notation.