BPMN Gateway Types

3 min

Like flowcharts, BPMN diagrams use a set of standard symbols. Each shape has a specific meaning and business context where it’s most appropriate. If you become overwhelmed while drawing your BPMN chart, simply check this guide.

Business process mapping templates

Business Process Flow Template

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Business Process Flow Template

Flowchart Template

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Flowchart Template

Processing Mapping Template

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Processing Mapping Template

BPMN resources

BPMN Course - Learning Services

In this course we’ll go over some best practices when creating them in Lucidchart and additional features that can help you improve your business processes. 

Business process mapping tool

Build your own business process modeling notation (BPMN) diagrams in Lucidchart. With just a few clicks, access all the shapes you need to create a polished and professional business process map, including tasks, transactions, conversions, call activities, data storage, and more.

BPMN tutorial

This comprehensive Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) guide offers everything you need to know, including what it is, its purpose, its benefits, symbols, and notation.

BPMN FAQs

BPMN gateways are decision points that can adjust the path of a flow based on certain conditions in a business process.

An exclusive gateway evaluates the state of the business process and breaks the flow into one of two or more mutually exclusive paths based on the condition.

A parallel gateway represents two concurrent tasks in a business flow without evaluating any condition or event, similar to a fork in a UML activity diagram.

An inclusive gateway breaks the process flow into one or more flows, allowing multiple paths to be triggered based on different conditions.

Only use complex gateways for flows in a business process that require multiple gateways to describe the business flow; otherwise, you should use a simpler gateway.

 

A parallel event-based gateway allows for multiple processes to happen at the same time, where multiple events can trigger multiple processes, but the processes are still dependent upon specific events.

All BPMN gateways are represented as diamond shapes, with different internal symbols to distinguish between exclusive, parallel, inclusive, complex, and event-based gateways.

Everything you need to make a diagram

In addition to our online diagram maker, Lucidchart offers support and training resources to help you branch out to any type of diagram.

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