- 7 minutes to read

Custom Metadata for BPMs

New 7.2

Capture institutional knowledge directly on your process models—ownership, SLAs, compliance requirements, and business context

Starting with Nodinite 7.2.0, both BPMs and Domains support Custom Metadata—enabling you to document ownership, SLAs, compliance requirements, and business context directly on your process models. This transforms BPMs from visual diagrams into comprehensive process documentation that preserves institutional knowledge.

Why Add Custom Metadata to BPMs?

Traditional process documentation tools separate visual models from business context:

❌ Ownership buried in SharePoint - Process owner info in separate wiki pages
❌ SLAs in Excel spreadsheets - Performance targets disconnected from process
❌ Compliance notes in emails - Regulatory requirements scattered across systems
❌ Knowledge in people's heads - Critical context lost when staff turnover occurs

Custom Metadata on BPMs solves this by embedding business context directly:

✅ Ownership tracking - Process owner, team, contact info on the BPM itself
✅ SLA documentation - Performance targets visible to operations teams
✅ Compliance requirements - GDPR, SOX, HIPAA notes attached to processes
✅ Business context - Purpose, scope, dependencies documented in one place
✅ Audit trail - Who created, modified, approved process models
✅ Searchable - Find processes by owner, compliance tag, business unit

What Can You Document?

Custom Metadata enables you to enrich BPMs with any business context:

Process Ownership

  • Process Owner - Name, email, phone, team
  • Business Sponsor - Executive stakeholder
  • Technical Lead - IT contact for troubleshooting
  • Operations Contact - 24/7 support contact for incidents
  • Last Review Date - Governance compliance tracking
  • Next Review Due - Process audit schedule

Service Level Agreements

  • Target MTTR - Mean Time To Resolution (e.g., "< 30 minutes")
  • Availability Target - Uptime SLA (e.g., "99.9% monthly")
  • Transaction Volume - Expected throughput (e.g., "10,000 orders/day")
  • Peak Hours - Business-critical time windows
  • Batch Windows - Maintenance schedule constraints
  • Escalation Path - Who to contact if SLA breached

Compliance & Governance

  • Regulatory Requirements - GDPR, SOX, HIPAA, PCI-DSS
  • Data Retention Policy - How long logs/payloads are retained
  • Privacy Classification - PII, PHI, financial data handling
  • Audit Frequency - Annual, quarterly, monthly reviews
  • Last Audit Date - Compliance tracking
  • Risk Rating - Critical, High, Medium, Low

Business Context

  • Business Purpose - Why this process exists
  • Scope - What's included/excluded
  • Dependencies - Upstream/downstream processes
  • Integration Points - External systems involved
  • Business Hours - When process should execute
  • Change Approval - CAB requirements, freeze windows

How It Works

1. Define Custom Metadata Templates

Administrators create Custom Metadata definitions with fields specific to BPMs:

Example: "BPM Ownership Template"

Field Name Data Type Mandatory Example Value
Process Owner Text Yes John Smith (john.smith@company.com)
Business Sponsor Text Yes Jane Doe, VP Finance
Operations Contact Text Yes NOC Team (noc@company.com, +1-555-0100)
Last Review Date Date No 2026-01-15
Next Review Due Date Yes 2026-07-15

Example: "SLA Template"

Field Name Data Type Mandatory Example Value
Target MTTR Text Yes < 30 minutes
Availability SLA Text Yes 99.9% monthly uptime
Peak Transaction Volume Number No 15000
Escalation Contact Text Yes On-Call Manager (+1-555-0200)

2. Associate Custom Metadata with BPMs and Domains

Custom Metadata can be associated with:

  • BPMs - Process-level metadata (ownership, SLAs, compliance)
  • Domains - Domain-level metadata (team contact, business unit, cost center)

Custom Metadata Association
Custom Metadata can be associated with BPMs and Domains (both marked as Mandatory)

3. Populate Metadata on BPMs

When creating or editing a BPM:

  1. Navigate to Repository > BPMs > Overview
  2. Click "Add BPM" or edit existing BPM
  3. Scroll to "Custom Metadata" section
  4. Select metadata template (e.g., "BPM Ownership")
  5. Fill in fields:
    • Process Owner: John Smith (john.smith@company.com)
    • Business Sponsor: Jane Doe, VP Finance
    • Operations Contact: NOC Team (noc@company.com)
    • Last Review Date: 2026-01-15
    • Next Review Due: 2026-07-15
  6. Save BPM

Metadata is now visible in BPM Overview list, BPM Designer, and searchable via Web API.

4. Search and Filter by Metadata

Use Custom Metadata to find processes:

  • Find all processes owned by "John Smith"
  • Identify processes with GDPR compliance requirements
  • List processes with SLA < 30 minutes MTTR
  • Filter by risk rating or audit status

Custom Metadata fields are indexed and searchable via Web API for custom reports.

Use Cases

1. Process Ownership Accountability

Challenge

Process owner information scattered across wiki pages, SharePoint, emails

Solution

Add "Process Owner" Custom Metadata to all BPMs

Benefits

  • Incident responders instantly see who to contact
  • Staff turnover doesn't lose ownership knowledge
  • Governance teams can audit ownership coverage
  • Search "all processes owned by departing employee" for handoff

2. SLA Management and Monitoring

Challenge

SLA targets in Excel, disconnected from actual process monitoring

Solution

Add SLA Custom Metadata to BPMs, compare against real-time metrics

Benefits

  • Operations teams see target MTTR directly in BPM
  • Compare actual vs. target availability (99.2% actual vs. 99.9% target)
  • Identify SLA breaches proactively
  • Link SLAs to customer contracts

3. Compliance Audit Preparation

Challenge

Auditors request "all GDPR-regulated processes" - manual documentation search

Solution

Tag BPMs with "Compliance: GDPR" Custom Metadata

Benefits

  • Query Web API for all GDPR processes in seconds
  • Generate compliance report showing process coverage
  • Track last audit dates and next review schedule
  • Demonstrate regulatory compliance to auditors

4. Process Governance and Reviews

Challenge

No systematic process for reviewing/updating BPMs

Solution

Add "Last Review Date" and "Next Review Due" Custom Metadata

Benefits

  • Automated alerts when BPMs require review (90 days overdue)
  • Track which processes are up-to-date vs. stale
  • Enforce governance policy (annual review mandatory for critical processes)
  • Generate exec dashboard showing governance compliance

5. Onboarding and Knowledge Transfer

Challenge

New employees spend weeks learning "who owns what"

Solution

Custom Metadata provides self-service process directory

Benefits

  • New staff search by business unit, team, or purpose
  • Ownership, contacts, dependencies documented in one place
  • Reduces onboarding from weeks to days
  • Institutional knowledge preserved when staff leave

Domain-Level Custom Metadata

Domains also support Custom Metadata for team/organizational tracking:

Example: "Domain Team Contact"

Field Value
Team Name Finance Integration Team
Team Lead Sarah Johnson (sarah.j@company.com)
Team Email finance-integration@company.com
Business Unit Finance - Accounts Payable
Cost Center CC-12345
Office Location Building A, Floor 3

Benefits

  • See team contact info directly in BPM Designer
  • Search processes by business unit or cost center
  • Organizational restructure updates apply to all BPMs using that Domain

Best Practices

Start with Essential Metadata

✅ Phase 1: Ownership - Process Owner, Operations Contact (mandatory for all BPMs)
✅ Phase 2: SLAs - Target MTTR, Availability SLA (for production processes)
✅ Phase 3: Compliance - Regulatory tags, audit schedule (for regulated processes)
✅ Phase 4: Business Context - Purpose, scope, dependencies (as time permits)

❌ Don't create 50 fields upfront - Start small, expand based on actual needs

Make Critical Fields Mandatory

Use mandatory constraints for essential governance fields:

  • Process Owner - Mandatory (100% ownership coverage)
  • Operations Contact - Mandatory (incident response requirement)
  • Next Review Due - Mandatory (governance compliance)
  • Business Purpose - Optional (nice-to-have, not critical)

Use Controlled Vocabularies

For fields like "Risk Rating" or "Compliance Type", use controlled vocabularies:

✅ Risk Rating: Critical | High | Medium | Low
✅ Compliance Type: GDPR | SOX | HIPAA | PCI-DSS | None
❌ Free text - Leads to inconsistency (gdpr, GDPR, General Data Protection Regulation)

Use Link data type in Custom Metadata for external references:

  • Confluence Page: https://wiki.company.com/process-123-runbook
  • JIRA Project: https://jira.company.com/browse/PROJ-456
  • ServiceNow Incident: https://servicenow.company.com/INC0012345
  • SharePoint Document: https://sharepoint.company.com/sites/finance/sla-agreements.docx

Keep Metadata Current

📅 Review schedule:

  • Critical processes: Quarterly review of ownership/SLAs
  • Standard processes: Annual review of all metadata
  • Automated reminders when "Next Review Due" date passes

🔄 Update triggers:

  • Organizational change (new team lead → update Domain metadata)
  • SLA change (contract renewal → update SLA fields)
  • Compliance requirement (new regulation → add compliance tag)

Next Steps

Custom Metadata Overview – Understand Custom Metadata architecture and configuration
Add or manage Custom Metadata – Step-by-step guide to creating Custom Metadata
Add or manage BPM – Learn how to add Custom Metadata when creating BPMs

Business Process Model (BPM) – Complete BPM overview
Domains – Define organizational swimlanes with team metadata
What is the BPM Designer – Visual swimlane process modeling
End-to-End Process Tracking – Milestone-based logging and correlation
Web API – Query BPMs by Custom Metadata for reports and dashboards