Creating Message Flows

Message flows are used for communication between participants of a process.

Prerequisites

A collaboration with at least two participants exists.

Context

Message flows can only be modeled between various participants of a collaboration and/or flow nodes in various participants. The following elements can be a message flow's source and/or target element:

Participant
Activity
Event

The message flow icon is then only shown for these elements in the carousel and only within a collaboration.

Message flows can only be modeled in a collaboration if a participant's process is only shown as a referencing view and if the collaboration itself is shown as a defining view.

A message can be assigned to a message flow.

The rectangular edge type is used if a message flow is linked with a participant on at least one side.

A polygon is used as edge type if a message flow is linked with process content (activity, event) on the source and target side.

How to proceed

Use the carousel to create a message flow.

The message flow is created. If a message flow starts or ends at a message event, send task or receive task and if a message is already assigned to this element, the same message is then automatically assigned to the message flow.
To explicitly assign a message to a message flow, drag the message from the Model Contents or another tool window and drop it on the message flow.
It is also possible to make the assignment in the Properties window.

The message is assigned and shown next to the message flow.