Participant

Intro

A participant is a business entity or role that controls or is responsible for a process. In BPMN collaborations, participants are represented as pools.

Key points:

• Defines accountability boundaries in models.
• Separates internal processes from external interactions.
• Common use cases across EA/BPM/Data/App/Tech include customer vs. supplier pools, department boundaries, and partner integrations.
• Pitfall: modeling internal teams as separate participants without clear boundaries.

Examples:

• Retailer and Customer as separate participants.
• Company division collaborating with a logistics provider.
• Buyer and Seller roles in a marketplace process.

In practice:

Use pools for participants and connect them with message flows for cross‑boundary communication.

Related terms: Pool; Message Flow; Collaboration

FAQs:

Q: Can a participant be a system?
A: Yes; participants can be organizations, roles, or systems controlling a process.

Q: How do participants interact?
A: Via message flows across pools.

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