Towards integrated modeling of business processes and business rules

While business process models describe business operations in a procedural form, business rules are typically expressed in a declarative fashion. Previous studies have demonstrated that both approaches are complementary as they address distinct aspects of organizational practices. However, both approaches share areas of overlap that allow for the linkage of rule bases and process models. Current technology offerings allow for the pragmatic invocation of rule engines from business process management systems, but an integrated procedure model is lacking that guides modelers when to model organizational aspects as rules or processes and in which order to develop the separate artifacts. The research presented here aims to address this gap by presenting a decision framework for process and rule modeling, and an initial procedure model for integrated modeling with the two approaches.