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BPMN Flow overview

BPMN Flow is one of Orvanta’s three flow authoring models, alongside the node-based DAG Flow canvas and Code Flow. Instead of Orvanta’s own node graph, you model a process using BPMN 2.0 notation — the standard used by tools like Camunda and Flowable. A businessRuleTask in a BPMN process can call out to a DMN decision table to make a routing decision.

Like every Orvanta flow, a BPMN process compiles to a durable, version-controlled artifact — see Flows as artifacts for the model shared across all three authoring styles.

When to choose BPMN Flow

Section titled “When to choose BPMN Flow”

Reach for BPMN Flow when:

  • Your team already thinks in BPMN — process documentation, stakeholder reviews, or a migration from Camunda/Flowable/Activiti.
  • The process benefits from standards-based notation for governance or compliance sign-off, independent of how it executes.
  • Decision logic naturally separates into a DMN decision table rather than inline branching.

Reach for DAG Flow instead when you want Orvanta’s most mature, fully-featured node canvas and don’t need BPMN portability — DAG Flow is the reference implementation and has no coverage gaps against its own model. Reach for Code Flow when the orchestration logic is easier to express as a program than as any graph.

Check element coverage before committing to BPMN Flow for an existing process. The engine executes a defined subset of the BPMN 2.0 spec, not the full standard — see the element reference for exactly which constructs run today, and Importing from Flowable/Camunda if you’re migrating existing process definitions.

Tier requirement

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BPMN Flow requires the Business tier (Feature::BpmnFlow, min_tier: Tier::Business in the platform’s feature catalog). On a Trial, Solo, or Teams licence, the BPMN card in the create-flow modal is shown locked with an upgrade prompt rather than hidden — the feature is entitlement-gated, not removed. Business and Enterprise both include BPMN, DMN, and CMMN.

This is a regrade: BPMN Flow shipped to Teams workspaces on 2026-07-24 and moved to Enterprise-only shortly after, alongside DMN, before settling at Business as part of the five-tier edition model. A Teams workspace that already has BPMN flows keeps them running — process instances already in flight continue to completion regardless of licence changes — but creating or editing a BPMN flow now requires at least Business.

Where it lives in the UI

Section titled “Where it lives in the UI”

Start a BPMN process from the Create flow modal — it sits alongside the DAG Flow and Code Flow cards. Creating or editing one opens the BPMN canvas at /bpmn/add or /bpmn/edit/<path>; running instances and their history are visible from the flow’s runs list, with a token-level view of the current process state.

See also

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