Business Process Flows (BPFs) in Dynamics 365 CE / Power Platform – Deep Dive Part 1

I have always been intrigued by these business process flows(BPF) and mainly because they are both; a nice visual if a visual is needed and they can drive process adherence automatically.

The basics of BPFs are that for each new BPF a new entity is created in Dataverse, and it is related to a primary entity or to the entity where it is meant to start the visualzation of the process.

Entity in Dataverse:

Data in the BPF Entity

The business process flow is collected as data in the KYC Simple entiy

These BPFs Have The Following Limitations

• Each entity can have 10 activated BPFs
• Each BPF can contain up to 30 stages.
• A BPF can be used up to 5 entities
• The BPF will track time over the entire process
• The BPF will track time in each stage

Example 1: BPF on a Contact – 3 Stages

Example 2:  BPF Across Lead and Opporuntities – 4 Stages

Start with 1 stageon a Lead

Finish with 3 stages on an Opportunity

Here is the Data Model:

The data model BPFs like my KYC Simple creates a business process flow instance. This instance is related to process sessions and process stages.  The process sessions are a well-known table that holds all the process sessions for various types of automations.

Process

Processes are a range of items like workflows, Actions, Flows, BPFS

I can see my KYC Simple BPF here:

There is an information form that can’t be edited, and it is not possible to create a new form for this table:

Process Entity > Forms

KYC SIMPLE BPF Table:

I added the KYC Simple Table to an app to see each business process instance. The process instances is for creation of the BPF on the primary contact.

Like any entity, I can open these in excel online just as an example and move the ACTIVE STAGE(Stages will be discussed in another post):

AS for the forms just like the Process Entity there is an information form that can’t be edited, and it is not possible to create a new form for this table:

KYC SIMPLE BPF > FORM

Click on the Business Process Flow Designer it takes us here:

How does this render?

I came to realize that I do not understand how this works because it is an entity embedded in the header of another entity.   BPF Entity in the header of a contact entity?

In the Dev Tools in chrome, it looks like this:

And when digging into just the BPF – than we see it is a control embedded via a <div>

In the Default solution the control for the ProcessBreadCrumb control looks like this:

Opening the Control Properties:

In the properties of the control it is possible to the various .JS libraires and it states "IsVirtual" = True, which is interesting.

The Manifest is here:

The Manifest gives some information also.

So What?

Like everything that looks simple under the hood it is not. There is a lot more information to dive into with the business process controls that I will provide in another deep dives especially how to use it in very practical ways like

• How does the BPF Keep Time on the process and in each Stage?
• How do stages work on a BPF?
• Moving the BPF stages automagically.
• Having more than one PBF on an entity and why?
• Visualizing multiple PBFs on an Entity.
• Importing and exporting
• Power BI and BPFS
• Other tips and tricks

Source: Business Process Flows (BPFs) in Dynamics 365 CE / Power Platform