States

Although UML state diagrams are used to define the functionality of a Finite State Machine, states are not the primary participants in the configuration of a Finite State Machine algorithm because we cannot define these time periods using their start and end times or their duration. we just don't know these parameters in advance.

Consider the process of ordering pizza. The business process stopped in the “Waiting for pizza to arrive” state after completing all the actions of the “Order pizza” transition. We cannot know in advance the exact start time of this waiting period as it may vary depending, for example, on how the order was placed – through a phone call, through a website or a mobile application. We cannot know in advance the exact end time of this waiting period as well as there are many uncertainties in the pizza delivery process, such as traffic jams, road closures or accidents. Because of this, we cannot define not only this state of this business process, but any state of any business process.

All we can do is simply give the business process states meaningful names. And it is obvious that each such name must be unique since we name different time periods of the entire business process.

Business process states do not immediately follow each other. They are separated by the time it takes to complete the transitions connecting them, although this may only take milliseconds.

That is, business process states are periods of time not connected to each other with unique names that indicate stops in the business process .

Transitions

Unlike states, transitions are key elements of a business process and are very well defined. A transition contains information about the state from which it begins, a list of activities that must be performed while the transition is executing, possible business rules, and a list of target states in which it can end.

Finite State Machine Configuration

So, when we say that Business Process is a programmed Finite State Machine , we are actually talking about providing the Finite State Machine with a list of transitions to execute, where each transition is defined by a set of elements and properties that includes the name of the state from which it starts, a list of actions to be performed, possible business rules, and a list of target states in which it can end.

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