Comprehensive Traceability Framework for Synchronizing Design UML

Sequence Diagrams with a BPMN Diagram

Aljia Bouzidi

, Nahla Haddar

and Kais Haddar

ISIMM, Monastir University, Monastir, Tunisia

FSEGS, Sfax University, Sfax, Tunisia

FSS, Sfax University, Sfax, Tunisia

Keywords:

Alignment, BPMN, Design Sequence Diagram, Explicit Traceability.

Abstract:

In contemporary software engineering, business process models (BPM) play a crucial role in the development

of information systems (IS). However, a signiﬁcant discrepancy arises, as only a limited number of systems

align with their intended business processes, resulting in inconsistencies between economic and IS models.

Recognizing this gap, our research introduces an explicit traceability methodology, expanding on a previous

requirements traceability approach. The primary aim is to address the alignment and coevolution of dynamic

viewpoints between software models and BPM. Initially, we establish a uniﬁed trace metamodel that encom-

passes elements from Business Process and Model Notation (BPMN) and Uniﬁed Modeling Language (UML),

including use cases and design sequence diagrams. This metamodel establishes traceability links among in-

terconnected elements. Following this, we instantiate these metamodels as BPMNTraceISM diagrams. The

feasibility of our traceability method is afﬁrmed through the implementation of a comprehensive graphic ed-

itor designed for the creation and visualization of BPMNTraceISM diagrams. Additionally, we demonstrate

the effectiveness of our approach through testing in a case study.

1 INTRODUCTION

In modern software engineering process methodolo-

gies, the increasing signiﬁcance of business process

models (BPM) within information systems (IS) de-

velopment cannot be overstated. These models play

a pivotal role in ensuring a seamless alignment be-

tween the information system and the organization’s

business processes. They enhance communication,

streamline requirements analysis, and substantially

contribute to the successful implementation and op-

eration of the information system. Nevertheless, the

prevalent development of these modeling approaches

in isolation often results in a limited synchronization

between them, underscoring the necessity to bridge

this divide for the advancement of the ﬁeld. Trace-

ability is vital in software development, linking ar-

tifacts to reﬂect changes across a project. For in-

stance, when requirements change, traceability iden-

tiﬁes affected design artifacts, enhancing project de-

liverable quality. Although constructing such a model

is challenging, it serves as a reference for coherent

traceability links between heterogeneous models, en-

suring integrity. This paper aims to address the dis-

parity between BPM and IS models using a trace-

ability mechanism. The focus remains on pivotal

diagrams representing the Information System, en-

compassing the functional viewpoint through UML

Use Case diagrams and the behavioral aspect de-

picted by Design Sequence diagrams (Speciﬁcation,

2017) structured according to the Model View Con-

troller (MVC) architectural pattern. Additionally, we

use Business Process and Model Notation (BPMN)

(Bpmn, 2008)for clarity in illustrating intricate busi-

ness workﬂows.

Indeed, we propose a traceability framework that

visually simplify the tracking of relationships be-

tween BPMN and UML artifacts. This framework

introduces trace links as new modeling elements, em-

phasizing considerations at both the meta-model and

model levels. This approach fosters collaboration be-

tween business and software design teams, streamlin-

ing the mapping of business activities to functional re-

quirements and object behaviors, ensuring traceabil-

ity and synchronization. Furthermore, the framework

facilitates impact analysis by enabling the joint mod-

eling of traceable elements, ensuring adjustments to

related components.

Bouzidi, A., Haddar, N. and Haddar, K.

Comprehensive Traceability Framework for Synchronizing Design UML Sequence Diagrams with a BPMN Diagram.

DOI: 10.5220/0012687200003687

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering (ENASE 2024), pages 513-520

ISBN: 978-989-758-696-5; ISSN: 2184-4895

513

We substantiate our contribution by implement-

ing a visual modeling tool that supports the proposed

traceability framework. Furthermore, we apply this

tool to an example for validation.

This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 re-

views relevant work. Section 3 describes our contri-

butions. Section 4 and section 5 prove the practical

and theoretical feasibility of our contributions. Fi-

nally, section 6 concludes the paper and presents our

outlooks.

2 RELATED WORK

The survey of related work categorizes approaches to

establishing traceability between different model el-

ements into two main groups. The ﬁrst group con-

sists of approaches deﬁning internal or implicit trace-

ability models, where the traceability model is inte-

grated with the source model(s) it traces. These ap-

proaches often utilize transformation models, explor-

ing various types such as vertical/horizontal and en-

dogenous/exogenous. However, implicit traceability

has limitations, including ﬁxed generating processes

and challenges in achieving complete models, as dis-

cussed by (Kleppe et al., 2003).

Within this category, some approaches focus on

generating UML diagrams from user requirements

speciﬁed informally (Ghiffari et al., 2023) and (Li-

cardo, 2023), or from BPMN (Khlif et al., 2022),

(Kharmoum et al., 2023). However, these ap-

proaches tend to concentrate solely on software mod-

els. Despite maintaining bidirectional trace links, this

method predominantly focuses on transformed con-

cepts and is limited to business modeling.

In the second category, explicit traceability mod-

els are deﬁned through two methodologies: (i) cre-

ating a separate external traceability model based

on transformation models and (ii) manually deﬁn-

ing external traceability. The ﬁrst methodology in-

volves storing trace links in an external traceabil-

ity model conforming to traceability meta-models

(Haidrar et al., 2017; Qiao et al., 2023). The second

methodology requires manual creation of traceability

links in the form of a separate trace model (Meier and

Winter, 2018).

Contributions related to manual external trace-

ability model deﬁnition include studies deﬁning in-

tegrated meta-models of enterprise architecture (EA)

levels (Moreira and Maciel, 2017), ensuring existing

artifacts conform to meta-models (Meier and Winter,

2018). However, challenges arise in adapting generic

traceability meta-models to speciﬁc methods or mod-

eling language contexts.

While existing approaches focus on aligning

BPMN and UML use case models, there is a notable

absence of explicit or external trace models or meta-

models speciﬁcally addressing traceability between

BPMN and UML sequence diagrams. This highlights

the need for adaptable guidelines and approaches that

can address challenges within speciﬁc modeling lan-

guages and methods.

3 OUR CONTRIBUTIONS

This study tackles the challenges in aligning business

and software domains through the simpliﬁcation of

software model creation based on business models.

To overcome this challenge, we propose a traceabil-

ity method that operates at both the metamodel and

model levels. This method introduces a uniﬁed meta-

model and a traceability model, guiding the establish-

ment of connections between existing artifacts and

effectively linking business models with information

system models.

At the metamodel level, the integration involves

combining BPMN and UML elements, including use

case models and design sequence diagram elements

structured according to the MVC architectural pat-

tern. This integration results in a cohesive metamodel

that enhances traceability.

At the model level, the consolidated model,

termed BPMNTraceISM, incorporates BPMN and

UML elements, as well as traceability links, facili-

tating the visualization and analysis of tracked com-

ponents. Furthermore, it supports the validation of

changes before their propagation to source models.

3.1 Integration of BPMN and UML

Meta-Models

At the outset of our research, we concentrate on in-

tegrating BPMN and UML meta-models. Our main

goal is to match the metaclasses of the BPMN meta-

model with their overlapped metaclasses of the UML

design sequence diagram and use case model. This

alignment serves to strengthen the traceability con-

nections between BPMN and UML concepts. Our

integrated tracking metamodel serves as a cohesive

framework that consolidates all BPMN and UML

concepts into a single, uniﬁed metamodel. More-

over,it deﬁnes new metaclasses and trace links, which

are intentionally created to fully integrate BPMN and

UML concepts and effectively and transparently rep-

resent traceable connections between them.

The process of creating an integrated metamodel

consists of two basic phases. To construct a coher-

ENASE 2024 - 19th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering

514

ent integrated meta-model that contains both BPMN

and UML elements; we begin the process by iden-

tifying the semantic connections between their ele-

ments. In literature, we have identiﬁed tow relevant

studies (Bouzidi et al., 2020) and (Bouzidi et al.,

2017), which proposed MDA transformation models

of a BPMN and UML use case diagram and design

sequence diagram structured according to the MVC

pattern basing on semantic mappings between them.

Then, we deﬁne a strategy that allows to connect

BPMN and UML concepts without changing their ini-

tial meaning. In the rest of this section, we detail the

process of construction of BPMN-use case diagram,

and BPMN-Sequence diagram traceability.

3.1.1 Traceability of the Use Case Meta-Model

and the BPMN Meta-Model

To achieve traceability in BPMN-use case diagrams,

the initial step involves establishing or identifying

suitable mappings between BPM and use case dia-

grams. Numerous works in the literature have al-

ready delineated pertinent mappings for this purpose.

Table 1 illustrates the mapping of the BPMN and

the UML use case model meta-classes token from

(Bouzidi et al., 2017) and served as the foundation

for establishing traceability between BPMN and use

case diagram artifacts.

Once BPMN-use case diagram mapping is iden-

tiﬁed, we deﬁne a strategy that allows to connect

BPMN and UML concepts without changing their ini-

tial meaning. Indeed, we propose a mechanism to

maintain the semantics of coupled concepts by intro-

ducing new metaclasses or associations, which rep-

resent trace links. These trace links serve as channels

for building relationships at the metamodel level, with

an inheritance link connecting the new metaclasses to

their elements. This inheritance relationship is fun-

damental to the inheritance of the characteristics of

overlapping concepts, allowing them to be used to-

gether without changing their original meaning.

A portion of the integrated traceability meta-

model, speciﬁcally designed to establish traceability

between BPMN metamodels and use case diagrams,

is shown in Figure 1. In this excerpt, BPMN con-

cepts are represented by white metaclasses, the dia-

gram elements of UML use cases are represented by

light gray. Newly introduced metaclasses and con-

cepts are indicated by dark gray metaclasses. Blue

associations indicate new links being followed, while

black associations indicate existing connections.

To express the traceability between BPMN and

use case diagram concepts, we have introduced the

following new meta-classes:

• AUActor and OUPackage: ”Organizational-

Table 1: Mapping of BPMN and use case meta-model con-

cepts.

UML con-

cept

BPMN concept

Package Empty Lane (a lane including

other sub-lanes)

Actor Non empty Lane (that does

not contain other sub-lanes)

Use case Fragment represented by a

sequence of BPMN artefacts

that is performed by the

same role and manipulates

the same item aware element

(business object, input data,

data store, data state)

Extends Exclusive Gateway between

two different fragments

Association Fragment within the lowest

nesting level of sub-lanes

Includes Redundant Fragment (that

appears multiple Times in the

BPMN model)

Extends Inclusive Gateway between

two different fragments

Extension

Point

Condition of sequence Flow

+ the name of the fragment

that represents to the extend-

ing use case

Unit-Actor ” (OUActor) is a new metaclass

that inherits key properties of UML actors and

BPMN lanes and serves as a cohesive element

that aligns lane functions and actors while main-

taining their integrity semantics. Additionally,

”Organizational-Unit-Package” (OUPackage) is

a new metaclass designed speciﬁcally for estab-

lishing traceability connections between BPMN

lanes and rowsets and use case packages. This

recognition recognizes their parallel roles within

modeling frameworks.

• Fragment: as sequences executed by performers,

consuming resources, and yielding a product. In

the integrated tracking metamodel, fragments are

instances of the Fragment metaclass. The estab-

lishment of an aggregation relationship (1-*) en-

hances traceability, allowing subprocesses to po-

tentially contain multiple mandatory fragments,

with added associations reinforcing connections

to participants and data objects.

• Use Case Supporting Fragment (UCsF): ”Use

Case Supporting Fragment” (UCsF) specializes

in modeling computer systems. UCsF inherits the

use case and establishes a composition relation-

ship with the Fragment metaclasses. This rela-

tionship ensures that any changes made to UCsF

Comprehensive Traceability Framework for Synchronizing Design UML Sequence Diagrams with a BPMN Diagram

515

Figure 1: Traceability of BPMN and use case meta-model concepts.

are reﬂected in the appropriate use case and se-

quence of BPMN elements, promoting transpar-

ent consistency.

3.1.2 Traceability of the Design Sequence

Diagram Meta-Model and the BPMN

Meta-Model

To establish traceability between BPMN and the de-

sign sequence diagrams, the ﬁrst crucial step involves

deﬁning or identifying appropriate mappings between

BPMN and conceptual sequence diagrams. In exist-

ing literature, (Bouzidi et al., 2020) have developed

a semantic mapping between BPMN and UML ar-

tifacts, accompanied by model transformations from

BPMN to design sequence diagrams structured ac-

cording to the MVC design pattern. These transfor-

mations include mapping BPMN looping activities to

looping combined fragments, representing an empty

lane as an actor, and more. This paper leverages

the semantic mappings established by (Bouzidi et al.,

2020) to establish traceability between BPMN and de-

sign sequence diagrams. This detailed mapping can

be found in Table 2, which provides a clear and con-

cise overview of the relationships between the rele-

vant concepts of BPMN and the design sequence di-

agram structured according to the MVC architectural

pattern.

(Bouzidi et al., 2020) proposed BPMN-to-

sequence diagram transformation rules that operate

on each element of a canonical fragment F. There-

fore, this mapping is devoted to each fragment in

the BPMN model. Moreover, the sequence diagram

meta-model concepts are structured according to the

MVC design pattern because the proposed BPMN-to-

Table 2: Mapping of BPMN and UML sequence diagram

meta-model concepts.

BPMN concept UML concept

Fragment Interaction (frame) ,

Control lifeline , Bound-

ary lifeline , Entity

lifeline

Empty lane/ Empty pool Actor

Data input/ Data output/

Data object/ Data store

Entity lifeline

Automated task(user

task, send task, receive

task, service task, busi-

ness rule task, script

task)

Message

Signal event Message

Error event/ Cancel

event

Control lifeline , Bound-

ary lifeline , Message ,

Combined fragment ,In-

teraction operator Break

Compensate event Control lifeline , Bound-

ary lifeline , Message

Loop task Combined fragment ,In-

teraction operator Itera-

tion (loop)

Exclusive/ Inclusive

gateway

Combined fragment ,In-

teraction operator Alter-

native(Alt)

Parallel gateway Combined fragment , In-

teraction operator Paral-

lel(Par)

Task that appears in

multiple fragments , In-

clusive/ Exclusive gate-

way between two differ-

ent fragments

Interaction use

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516

sequence diagram transformation rules base on this

pattern. In addition, the majority of the relation-

ships between the overlapping concepts in the BPMN

and UML sequence diagram meta-models are one-to-

many or many-to-many (cf. table 2. This is primarily

caused by the signiﬁcant degree of heterogeneity be-

tween the BPMN and the sequence diagram artefacts.

In order to simplify our explicit trace meta-model, we

have restricted our mapping to the deﬁnition of trace

links in the form of new associations rather than new

traceability meta-classes. The aforementioned trace

meta-classes are used once more to deﬁne traceabil-

ity between BPMN and conception sequence diagram

concepts.

Figure 2 shows an excerpt from the meta-model

used to trace the sequence diagram and BPMN meta-

models. It covers the fundamental artifacts of BPMN,

the sequence diagram meta-model, and reused trace-

ability concepts for the sake of readability.

It’s important to mention that all use case concept,

BPMN concepts, traceability links, and existing as-

sociations deﬁned in the integrated trace metamodel

are not presented in this extract of the explicit trace

metamodel remain valid.

In this extract of the explicit trace metamodel,

white meta-classes represent the BPMN concepts, vi-

olet meta-classes represent the MVC design pattern-

compliant conception sequence diagram meta-model

concepts, whereas dark grey meta-classes are used to

represent new concepts. The existing associations are

represented by the black associations, while the new

proposed trace links are represented by the blue asso-

ciations.

Notable aspects of these traceability efforts in-

clude:

• Targeted Trace Links: The mapping establishes

speciﬁc trace links between related concepts from

BPMN and sequence diagram meta-models. For

instance, it deﬁnes associations connecting Loop

combined fragments with activity meta-classes,

indicating how loops in BPMN correspond to ac-

tivities in sequence diagrams.

• Associations with Multiplicity: The multiplic-

ity of associations reﬂects the different nature of

the relationships between concepts. For example,

trace links from activation and exclusive gateways

to Alt (connected shards) are set to a multiplicity

of 1.*, meaning that each port in the fragment cor-

responds to at least one linked ”Alt” fragment.

• Composition for End-to-End Integration:

Composition links between Use Case Support

Fragments (UCsF) and sequence diagram ele-

ments demonstrate the end-to-end integration

of these elements. UCsF can contain linked

lifelines, messages and fragments, effectively

representing the fragment components supported

by a use case.

3.2 Instantiating the Integrated

Traceability Metamodel

The second phase of the method focuses on estab-

lishing traceability between BPMN and UML arti-

facts at the model level. It introduces the BPM-

NTraceISM diagram, a derivative of the integrated

tracing metamodel, serving as a uniﬁed platform for

designing relationships between BPMN and UML

components. This diagram enables transparent dis-

play and querying of traceability information, en-

hancing analytical efﬁciency, reducing effort in iden-

tifying changes, and providing a foundation for accu-

rate planning and cost estimation of business model

modiﬁcations. The BPMNTraceISM diagram main-

tains original names and notations for clarity, adopt-

ing representations aligned with established BPMN

and UML notations to ensure understanding for both

businesses and software developers. Subsequent sec-

tions delve into graphical notations and representa-

tions for BPMNTraceISM elements.

3.2.1 BPMNTraceISM Artifacts Retain Their

Initial Notations

The semantic mapping we based on to deﬁne an in-

tegrated tracking metamodel extend into the domain

of speciﬁc BPMN and UML concepts. However, it

should be noted that not all BPMN concepts are di-

rectly compatible with their UML counterparts and

vice versa. For example, the BPMN start event has no

direct equivalent in UML, although there are UML se-

quence diagram elements such as Seq combined frag-

ments and Ignored combined fragments do not cor-

respond to any BPMN concepts. In the context of

the BPMNTraceISM diagram, it becomes possible to

identify UML artifacts that lack direct BPMN equiv-

alents.

In Table 3, we identify key BPMNTraceISM arti-

facts that do not have direct counterparts and explain

their unassigned status.

3.2.2 BPMNTraceISM Traceability Artifacts

Within the framework of the integrated trace meta-

model, we introduce three novel traceability concepts,

namely UCsF, OUActor, and OUPackage. These

concepts serve the purpose of unifying BPMN and

UML elements, requiring unambiguous and univer-

sally comprehensible graphic notations. These nota-

Comprehensive Traceability Framework for Synchronizing Design UML Sequence Diagrams with a BPMN Diagram

517

Figure 2: Traceability of the BPMN meta-model and the UML sequence diagram meta-model.

Table 3: Graphic notation of BPMNTraceISM concept

identiﬁed from non-overlapped artifacts.

BPMNTraceISM ele-

ment

Graphical notation

Annotation ﬂow

Start event

End event

Manual task

Normal task

Group

Critical combined frag-

ment

Seq combined fragment

Consider combined

fragment

Assert combined frag-

ment

Strict combined frag-

ment

Neg combined frag-

ment

Ignore combined frag-

ment

tions are thoughtfully crafted to be accessible and fa-

miliar to both software and business designers, ensur-

ing a seamless understanding of the BPMNTraceISM

diagram.

The graphic notation of OUActor, which har-

monizes the functionalities of a BPMN lane and a

UML actor, amalgamates elements drawn from the

Figure 3: Graphical notation of OUActor and OUPackage.

graphic notations of both BPMN and UML. Similarly,

OUPackages are represented using a fusion of lane

and UML package graphic notations (cf. Figure 3).

For UCsF, an entity that extends a UML use case

and inherits its attributes, a more intricate symbol is

warranted. The notation for UCsF builds upon the

foundation of the UML use case notation but ex-

tends it by incorporating two distinct compartments.

These compartments are dedicated to encapsulating

BPMN elements and design sequence diagram ele-

ments that are associated with the UCsF (cf. Figure

4). This compartmentalized approach empowers de-

signers with the ﬂexibility to selectively reveal or con-

ceal these elements, thereby effectively managing the

inherent complexity.

Figure 4: UCsF notation.

4 IMPLEMENTATION

To prove the feasibility of proposal in the practice, we

have developed a fully graphical modelling tool bap-

tized BPTraceISM (Business Process model Traced

with Information System Models).

To implement the BPTraceISM tool, we used

ENASE 2024 - 19th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering

518

Eclipse EMF to implement the external trace meta-

model and Eclipse GMF to specify the concrete no-

tation for the BPMNTraceISM diagram artifacts. In-

deed, this modelling tool is a fully functional graph-

ical editor. It conforms to our external trace meta-

model and permit to show and manage the trace links

between the BPMN model, and the UML use case and

the UML sequence diagram, concurrently. BPTra-

ceISM can be integrated with other modelling tools

to improve their modelling capabilities. To make our

modelling tool available in any Eclipse environment

without needing to start an Eclipse runtime, we im-

plement it as an Eclipse plugin.

The BPTraceISM construction process consists of

two basic phases; (1) the deﬁnition of the modelling

tool and (2) the deﬁnition of the plug-in that supports

it. The ﬁrst phase begins with the implementation of

the external meta-model according to the ecore meta-

modelling language. Next, we develop a toolkit to de-

sign instances of the meta-model classes. In the sec-

ond phase, we are developing functionality that sup-

ports the modelling tool. Subsequently, we build an

update site to ensure the portability of our plug-in and

allow its installation via any Eclipse update manager.

5 CASE STUDY

To illustrate the theoretical feasibility of our traceabil-

ity method, we apply it on the loan assessment busi-

ness process model token from (Dumas et al., 2013).

As our traceability method operates on each ele-

ment of a canonical fragment F. Therefore, we limit

the application of our traceability method on a frag-

ment of the business process loan assessment called

assess loan application of (see Figure 5). It is im-

portant to note that this traceability method is de-

voted to each fragment in the BPMN model. More-

over, the conception sequence diagram meta-model

concepts are structured according to the MVC design

pattern because the proposed BPMN-to-sequence di-

agram transformation rules base on this pattern.

Figure 5: The business process of the fragment loan appli-

cation.

The assess loan application is coupled with insur-

ance provided at discounted prices. When submitting

their insurance request to the loan ofﬁcer, an appli-

cant expresses its interest in a home insurance plan.

Then, the Laon ofﬁcer check the insurance request. If

it is accepted, Loan ofﬁcer send an acceptance pack

to the applicant. The acceptance pack may be joined

with an insurance quote. The sub-process ends with

the veriﬁcation of the repayment agreement.

In this fragment, we assume that the activity send

insurance quote task appears in other subprocess of

the business model loan assessment.

In this section, we show how we can combine the

different model artifacts (artifacts of source and target

models) within single uniﬁed model using our trace-

ability method.

To obtain the corresponding use case model or the

conception sequence diagram of the fragment Asses

loan application some model transformation may be

applied. However, model transformation is enable

to represent explicitly the semantic relationships be-

tween business and IS models. Indeed, use cases

are represented as black boxes and they do not ex-

plain what it supports from business process activ-

ities (or tasks). In addition, the business modeling

and IS modeling teams continue to work separately.

Thus, each modiﬁcation of the assess loan applica-

tion fragment requires regenerating the corresponding

conception sequence diagram and the use case dia-

gram, which is not a good practice. Using our BPM-

Figure 6: BPMTraceISM diagram of assess loan applica-

tion.

TraceISM diagram makes it possible to model to-

gether within the same diagram the Asses Loan appli-

cation fragment, the corresponding use case diagram

artifacts and the corresponding conception sequence

diagrams. Consequently, it is easy to perceive the

semantic relationships and correspondences between

the use cases, conception sequence diagram and the

BPMN fragment artifacts. Indeed, we can see that the

use case Assess loan application supports the actions

check insurance request, verify repayment agreement

and send acceptance pack. Moreover, each change

fulﬁlled within the fragment business process leads

automatically to the change of the use case and the

Comprehensive Traceability Framework for Synchronizing Design UML Sequence Diagrams with a BPMN Diagram

519

conception sequence diagrams. For instance, when

a task is added to the UCsF assess loan application,

the corresponding fragment will be automatically up-

dated. Thus, they are kept continuously aligned with

each other. On the other hand, no information of the

BPMN model has been lost. Further, this integrated

speciﬁcation of different features facilitates the analy-

sis of the links between the different source elements.

So, the impact of changing any of the existing ele-

ments in this diagram is now straightforwardly con-

cluded.

Figure 6 depicts the BPtraceISM diagram speci-

ﬁes together the fragment Asses loan application pre-

sented in Figure 8, the corresponding conception se-

quence diagram presented in Figure 10. as well as the

use cases which represent this fragment.

6 CONCLUSION

The works conducted in this paper ﬁt in the con-

text of model-based development of information sys-

tems and their alignment with business process mod-

els. Indeed, we have deﬁned a traceability method for

BPMN and the UML models that acts at the meta-

model and the model levels. Hence, we ﬁrstly deﬁned

an external trace meta-model that incorporates all the

BPMN and the UML elements (use case, design se-

quence diagram,), and traceability links between in-

terrelated elements. Then, we have deﬁned a new di-

agram baptized BPMNTraceISM coforms to the trace

meta-model. This diagram promotes communication

between business and software modelling teams and

allows them working together within a single uniﬁed

model. The joint representation of both BPMN and

UML model elements enables to drill down and easily

trace any BPMN element to its corres ponding soft-

ware elements.

To prove the feasibility of our traceability method

in the practice, we developed a modelling tool for

designing and handling BPMNTraceISM diagrams in

accordance with the proposed integrated trace meta-

model. Further, we applied the proposed approaches

to a typical case study.

In future research, we are looking forward to op-

timise our editor to support traceability and synchro-

nization between BPMN models and other UML dia-

grams.

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