Dependencies in business process rule hierarchies

Automated checking concepts for business process models support human testers considerably by saving time. However, this new checking ability results in a comparatively large number of rules representing requirements. But without a comprehensible representation of the relations between the rules on the one hand its hard to keep track on the validated rules and on the other hand to correctly interpret the validation results. In this paper we propose an improvement for the automated validation of business process models by offering elements to create abstract rules and arranging these rules in hierarchies. Top-down and bottom-up testing are supported by stepwise activating (and validating) the rules starting from the top of the hierarchy (or bottom respectively). Moreover, the rule hierarchies may be reused when similar systems are to be validated by configuring a valid rule sub-set for the specific business process system.