Process maps consist of four element types: activities,
decisions, calls to other processes, and go-to activities.
Activities are the basic building blocks of your process.
An activity is a distinct step, or unit of work that is performed
in the process. An activity can be represented as a single "black-box"
task, such as Interview Candidates, or also have sub-activities
contained within it, such as the individual steps involved in requesting
the assembling the candidate list, writing the interview script, setting
up appointments, and so on.- To add an activity in your process from the Outline view:
- Select an element in the Outline view and click Enter.
A new element is added as a sibling element. Give the new element
a meaningful name by typing the name and hitting Enter again to commit
it.
- To change an activity into a subactivity of the previous element,
select the element to become the subactivity in the outline view and
enter Tab. The element is indented in the outline
view, and becomes a child element in the diagram view.
- To move an element a level up in the hierarchy, for example to
change a parent-child relationship into a sibling relationship, select
the child element in the outline view and enter Shift-Tab.
The child element is now a sibling to its former parent. This is also
reflected in the diagram view, where the element has moved up one
level in the hierarchy.
- To add an activity in the Diagram view:
- Hover over the edge of one of the existing activities. A highlighted
insertion point appears indicating the direction of insertion for
the new element. For example, an highlighted area below an element
indicates the insertion point for a child element, or sub-activity,
and a highlighted area to the left or right of an element indicates
the insertion point of a sibling element, which will be a preceding
or following activity. Click the highlighted insertion point to add
an activity. Give the new activity a meaningful name by typing the
name and hitting Enter again to commit it.
- To represent a decision point in the execution path of your
process, add a decision to your map. Start by creating a generic activity
element, and rename the element as a question. The addition of a "?"
will automatically change the activity type to a question element.
To add branches to your decision, create child element of the decision
element, either by hovering over the element in the Diagram view and
clicking the highlighted insertion point, or by adding a child element
in the Outline view. You can also change the element to a decision
in the outline view by clicking on the blue square to the left of
the element name and selecting Decision from the drop-down list. You
can also use the Details view and change the Activity Type to
"Decision".
- To add an activity that calls another process map, create
a generic activity element. Select the element and, in the Attributes
section of the Details view, select "Process Call" as
the Activity Type. Click the Choose
process button and select the process either from the
list of documents in your space, search the repository for an existing
public document, or create a new process to call.
- A go-to element is an activity that indicates a change in
the process flow, pointing to the next activity to be completed in
sequence. You might use a go-to element as a branch of a decision,
to point back to an earlier activity in the process, for example if
there is rework to be done. To add a go-to element, create a generic
activity. Select the element and, in the Attributes section of the
Details view, select "Go-To" as the Activity Type.
From the drop down list of activities within the map, select the next
activity in the flow.
Note: If you plan to export your process to
WebSphere Business Modeler, any go-to elements must point to activities
that exist at the same level in the process. For example, activities
can link to other activities in the same process, but sub-activities
can only link to other sub-activities under the same activity. If
this requirement is not met, the connections will not be created in
the WebSphere Business Modeler process.