Cawemo should support Camunda BPMN properties

[ceefour]

Thanks @Niall for providing Cawemo (with a free plan!). Awesome product!

It’s very useful for collaboration on a BPMN diagram with a team member, however it doesn’t support the functionality of Camunda (most important) and Zeebe. Since Cawemo is a very useful tool to collaborate/communicate processes with team member, I hope it’s also possible to use Cawemo for “executable BPMN” with Service/External Task properties etc. that can be deployed directly in Camunda (or Zeebe).

As @aravindhrs mentioned here, either Cawemo and Modeler can be used to create BPMN model. In my experience this is not entirely true (I’d be glad to be proven wrong).

Currently after exporting BPMN, still need to edit in Camunda Modeler, and set up properties etc. which means the BPMN diagram in Camunda cloud differs with the executable BPMN for Camunda/code repository. I’d prefer (and I think will be useful to many users) Cawemo becomes single source of truth and code repository is just pulling the update from Cawemo.

Thanks in advance.

[aravindhrs]

@ceefour,

1. Cawemo, is a collaborative modeling tool allowing multiple users to create, edit and specify BPMN process diagrams.

2. Cawemo was developed with business stakeholders and product managers in mind, enabling multiple individuals to collaborate on workflow processes on a single platform.

3. It uses the BPMN 2.0 standard modeling language to graphically visualize workflows, which can be embedded in websites such as Confluence, exported as graphics for text documents such as Microsoft Word or loaded directly into Modeler, the developer tool of the Camunda stack.

4. Users will also be able to automatically import process diagrams from the Camunda Engine and the Camunda Modeler, directly into the Cawemo platform.

5. “Cawemo is the ‘Google Docs’ of business process modeling – a collaborative platform where teams can work together simultaneously”.

6. Companies undergoing digital transformation need to automate core business processes in a collaborative effort with software developers, as well as business stakeholders. Cawemo brings all these parties together to help complete their goals.

7. Cawemo is aimed at business users, product owners, managers, other stake holders and collaborative process modeling, where the model can be used for:

   • Initial design of requirements
   • Problem analysis
   • Solution design
   • System analysis/design
   • System integration
   • Resource optmization, etc.

8. Cawemo won’t produce executable process, because cawemo involves in design/analysis phase of the system. Further we need to configure other properties of the model once design is finalized. This phase is the technical phase, where developers set various properties for the bpmn model to be executable like:

   • History TTL
   • Process definition Key
   • Retry Time cycle
   • Version Tag
   • Job Priority
   • Startable
   • Executable
   • Configure Listeners/Delegates
   • Configure Extension properties, etc

Refer the cawemo-release-integrations-visual-comparison blog.

[ceefour]

Thank you @aravindhrs for the explanation. Yes I agree with you that there are two phases.

However, what happens when:

1. During technical phase, there is a need to tweak the workflow in a business/design/analysis perspective. If we import back the BPMN-in-progress to Cawemo and edit there, some information will be lost. Not to mention the back-and-forth.
2. How to collaborate during technical phase? Even if we’re already in technical phase, when there are two technical people or more, they cannot collaborate easily (remotely) in the same BPMN workflow as easily as in Cawemo.

	Offline, single-user	Online Collaboration
Design/Analysis Phase	Camunda Modeler	Cawemo
Technical Phase	Camunda Modeler	?

This is why I suggest Cawemo should not limit to “design phase only” but as a BPMN collaboration tool. Perhaps you can add a “technical phase BPMN workflow” type to Cawemo, which will allow technical people to collaborate. As currently Camunda is missing a tool for online collaboration of technical phase BPMN.

[aravindhrs]

Point.8 from this post will covers the technical phase,

Cawemo should support Camunda BPMN properties

@ceefour, Cawemo, is a collaborative modeling tool allowing multiple users to create, edit and specify BPMN process diagrams. Cawemo was developed with business stakeholders and product managers in mind, enabling multiple individuals to collaborate on workflow processes on a single platform. It uses the BPMN 2.0 standard modeling language to graphically visualize workflows, which can be embedded in websites such as Confluence, exported as graphics for text documents such as Microsoft Wo…

@ceefour, I hope, it might be in the backlog for future releases.

[11113]

As far as I understand, what you want is implemented in the paid version as a plugin.
https://docs.camunda.org/cawemo/latest/technical-guide/integrations/modeler/

[aravindhrs]

@11113 enterprise version of cawemo provides plugin to sync bpmn files with camunda modeler/Process engine to the cawemo. Again you can’t able to view the properties of the bpmn model. It’s a visual representation only of the flow only can be viewed and not the configuration details. Additionally, you can compare the different milestone versions of model visually.

You can refer this video for more about cawemo:

[aravindhrs]

@ceefour

This is why I suggest Cawemo should not limit to “design phase only” but as a BPMN collaboration tool. Perhaps you can add a “technical phase BPMN workflow” type to Cawemo, which will allow technical people to collaborate . As currently Camunda is missing a tool for online collaboration of technical phase BPMN.

@ceefour, I hope, it might be in the backlog for future releases.

[ceefour]

Thanks @11113! That’s really good find! So it is available, just requires an Enterprise license.

But even after paying Enterprise license, users still need to install Camunda Modeler locally then install the plugin to connect to Cawemo.

I would suggest to consider integrating this feature within Cawemo itself, even as a paid addon, but run fully SaaS. It’s possible that some people will need this cloud online collaboration for technical BPMN workflow but not requiring Camunda Enterprise (yet).

In marketing perspective, I’d suggest that if this feature is planned for Cawemo, make it free feature. The reason is Cawemo is an excellent marketing vehicle for Camunda (or Zeebe). When users try Cawemo and they like it, and they realize that Cawemo can be used not only for design/analysis BPMN, but also for technical BPMN, they will be interested to try Camunda too. And when they get exposed to Camunda features, some of them may convert to Camunda Enterprise or Camunda Cloud. To me that’s a very good sales funnel.

[ceefour]

Thanks! I’m glad you’re considering this.

[volker.gersabeck]

Hi @ceefour and @aravindhrs,

Being the product manager for both Cawemo and the Modeler, it was a pleasure to read this thread and how you helped each other. I couldn’t have described this better.

What I would add on top: what we have seen our customers doing is that they have the technical models as part of their source code repositories like git. This way, all technical people can collaborate and keep the models in sync with other source code that implements the individual tasks. Since many teams work with feature branches in such a setup, a live sync of process diagrams among several developers would not work in these scenarios. Therefore, we will always see the Camunda Modeler as the main tool for adding the technical execution details.

That said, we want to enable all stakeholders to at least be able to see how the process models evolve during the technical phase. This can be done using the already mentioned integrations between Cawemo and the Modeler or Camunda Engine. What we have added in the recent months are further details (basically all technical properties, like the external task topic, that you can edit in the Modeler) in the visual diffing mode that were not yet available in the demo video from the past CamundaCon:

Regarding our roadmap: while we do not have bigger topics like editing the execution details directly within Cawemo on our near-term roadmap, we still have these topics in the back of our mind and are regularly considering to invest in such topics.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Best,
Volker

[ceefour]

Thanks @volker.gersabeck! I agree, eventually the BPMN files are saved in the git repository.

I’d say Cawemo and git repository have different use cases, and complements each other. Analogy is like instant messenger (Cawemo) and email (git repo). Cawemo’s strength is the real-time feedback. It is also why people during Zoom meetings they open up Google Docs and collaborate together, not use git, because with Google Docs everybody can see the change at the same time.

Cawemo is also very good for “whiteboarding” / explaining things as we go, for someone who is very new to BPMN. My own experience: https://youtu.be/n2F2Q3o-gIw?t=2295 (from 38:17)

You must be preparing for CamundaCon 2020. Good luck!