Existing approaches to business process model-driven synthesis of data models are characterized by a direct synthesis of a target model based on source models represented by concrete notations, where the synthesis is supported by monolithic (semi)automatic transformation programs. This article presents an approach to automated two-phase business process model-driven synthesis of conceptual database models. It is based on the introduction of a domain specific language (DSL) as an intermediate layer between different source notations and the target notation, which splits the synthesis into two phases: (i) automatic extraction of specific concepts from the source model and their DSL-based representation, and (ii) automated generation of the target model based on the DSL-based representation of the extracted concepts. The proposed approach enables development of modular transformation tools for automatic synthesis of the target model based on business process models represented by different concrete notations. In this article we present an online generator, which implements the proposed approach. The generator is implemented as a web-based, service-oriented tool, which enables automatic generation of the initial conceptual database model represented by the UML class diagram, based on business models represented by two concrete notations.

This article presents a survey of model-driven techniquesfor data model synthesis. During an extensive research,we identified more than 70 research papers in the field andmore than 15 different graphical notations used for the sourcemodel representation.We have classified the proposed approachesinto four distinct groups: function-oriented, process-oriented,communication-oriented and goal-oriented. Their contributionsare presented in chronological order and evaluated based onseveral main criteria. Although the idea of model-driven designof the data model is more than 25 years old, the survey showsthe richness and diversity of ideas, but only a small number ofimplemented automatic generators.