Understanding Process Designer

Process Designer allows you to design business processes and business rules. It enables comprehensive designing of a process flow by the simple Point and Click method. The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) standard is used to graphically depict business processes. The Process Designer is easy to use and enables both technical and non-technical users to design processes.

The Process Designer screen is divided into following sections:

Menu Bar
Tool Bar
Palette
Repository View
Graph Canvas Area
Bottom Pane
PF XML
Preferences

Menu Bar

Options of the Menu Bar are listed in the table below.

Menu Option	Sub-Option	Function
File	New	Opens a new Graph Canvas to create a new process flow.
	Open Locally Saved Process Flow	Opens a process flow saved to a local machine.
	Save Process Flow to Server	Saves a process flow to the Adeptia Server.
	Save Process Flow Locally	Saves a process flow to a local machine.
	Import Process Model	Imports a process model and creates the process flow based on that model.
	Exit	Closes the Process Designer applet.
Edit	Undo	Reverses the previously performed action.
	Redo	Restores the previously undone action.
	Zoom In	Zoom and magnify the current selection.
	Zoom Out	Zoom and minimize the current selection.
Actions	Synchronize with Server	Synchronizes the process flow with a list of Adeptia Server objects such as activities and process flow.
	Enter Login Information	Login information for accessing process designer.
	Maximize Graph Canvas	Maximizes the Graph Canvas workspace.
	Show Properties Tab	Displays and activates the Properties tab at the bottom pane of the Graph Canvas.
	Show Exception Handler Tab	Displays and activates the On-Exception Scripts tab at the bottom pane of the Graph Canvas.
	Show Alerts Tab	Displays and activates the Alerts tab at the bottom pane of the Graph Canvas.
	Show Process Flow Variables Tab	Displays and activates the Process Flow Variables tab at the bottom pane of the Graph Canvas.
	Show Comments Tab	Displays and activates the Comments tab at the bottom pane of the Graph Canvas.
	Process Flow Attributes	Allows entering the properties of the process flow.
Modes	Online/Offline	Toggles between the online and offline mode.
View	Show Flow Object Labels	Displays the labels of the process flow objects.
	Show Connectivity Object Labels	Displays the labels while connecting objects.
	Show Artifacts and Associations	Displays the artifacts and associations.
	Show Control Flows	Displays the control flows.
	Grid	Displays the grid in Graph Canvas.
Help	Help	Displays help for the Process Designer applet.

The sub-options of the File, Edit, Actions, and Help menus can also be accessed using keyboard shortcuts. To view the list of the defined shortcuts, refer to Keyboard Shortcuts.

Tool Bar
Options of the Tool bar are explained in the table below.

Button	Name	Function
	New Process Flow	Opens a new graph canvas to create a process flow.
	Open Locally Saved Process Flow	Opens a process flow file saved on local hard disk.
	Save Process Flow to Adeptia Server	Saves a process flow to the Adeptia Server.
	Save process Flow Locally	Saves a process flow on the local hard disk.
	Generate PDF	Generates a PDF file of the process flow diagram. You can generate the following PDF: A Graph PDF includes all the rules applied to all activities in the process flow. A Summary PDF includes only the activity details. The Entire Flow PDF includes all details of the process flow.
	Synchronize with Server	Synchronizes the list of Adeptia Server objects, that is, activities and process flow from the Adeptia Server.
	Maximize Graph Canvas	Maximizes and restores the graph canvas.
	Show Properties Panel	Shows the Properties panel in the bottom pane.
	Show Exception Handler Panel	Shows the Exception Handler Script in the bottom pane.
	Show Error Panel	Shows the Error panel in the bottom pane.
	Show Process Flow Variable Panel	Shows the Process Flow Variable Panel in the bottom pane
	Show Comments Panel	Shows the Comments panel in the bottom pane.
	Undo	Reverses the previously performed action.
	Redo	Restores the previously undone action.
	Zoom In	Zoom In the Graph Canvas area.
	Zoom Out	Zoom Out the Graph Canvas area.

Palette
The Palette contains a list of BPMN graphical elements that are used to define the flow of business processes. These BPMN graphical elements are listed in following five different panels:

Element	Description	Notation
Events	An event is something that "happens" during the course of a business process. Events influence the flow of the process and usually have a cause (trigger) or an impact (result).	Start End Intermediate Error
Activities	An activity is a work that is performed within a business process. The rectangle image displayed in the next column is used to depict an activity in a process flow.	Activity
Gateways	A Gateway is used to control the divergence and convergence of a sequence flow. Thus, it determines branching, forking, merging, and joining of paths.	Gateway
Flows	A flow (control flow) is used to show the order that activities are performed in a business process. There are four types of flows: Sequence flow Default Sequence flow Association flow Directional Association
Artifacts	Artifacts do not have any direct effect on the sequence flow or message flow of the process. They are used to provide additional information for the reader of the process flow diagram. You can add any amount of information in this element. However, you cannot add any color to the text. To view the information, you can resize the frame in all directions.	Data Object

All the BPMN Graphical Elements can be resized.

Repository View
The Repository View lists the Adeptia Server objects, such as activities, process flows, context variables and actions.

Graph Canvas
The Graph Canvas is the area where a process flow is drawn. BPMN specification and Adeptia Server activities are dragged onto the Graph Canvas and arranged in a sequence in order to create a process flow. The Graph Canvas can also be resized if an activity is dragged beyond the default size.

Bottom Pane
The Bottom Pane is used to view the properties of the activities, add comments to the activities, view errors in a process flow, and to create context variables.

There are five panels in the Bottom Pane:

Properties
On Exception Script
Errors
Process Flow Variable
Comments

PF XML (Process Flow XML)

A Process Flow XML is generated while designing a process flow. Click PF XML tab to view the XML of a process flow.

Preferences

The Preferences window allows you to select the background color of the graph canvas and labels. Click Preferences tab to view the Preferences window.

You can modify following preferences.

Preferences	Description
Background Colors	Changes the background color of the Graph Canvas, BPMN Events Panel or Activities Panel.
Label Colors	Changes the colors of the labels of the activities displayed in the Graph Canvas.
Validation	Verifies that the process flow created in the Graph Canvas is correct as per the BPMN standard and Adeptia Server.
Undo Redo	Sets the number of actions you can undo or redo.
BPMN Palette Colors	Changes the colors of the Events, Activities, Gateway, and Artifacts.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Menu Option	Sub-Option	Keyboard Shortcut
File	New	<Ctrl> + <N>
	Open Locally Saved Process Flow	<Ctrl> + <O>
	Save Prcoess Flow to Server	<Ctrl> + <S>
	Save Process Flow Locally	<Ctrl> + <B>
Edit	Undo	<Ctrl> + <Z>
	Redo	<Ctrl> + <Y>
	Zoom In	<Ctrl> + <NumPad +>
	Zoom Out	<Ctrl> + <NumPad ->
Actions	Synchronize with Server	<F5>
	Enter Login Information	<Ctrl> + <L>
	Maximize Graph Canvas	<Ctrl> + <M>
	Show Properties Tab	<Ctrl> + <R>
	Show Exception Handler Tab	<Ctrl> + <G>
	Show Alerts Tab	<Ctrl> + <E>
	Show Process Flow Variables Tab	<Ctrl> + <F>
	Show Comments Tab	<Ctrl> + <H>
Help	Help	<F1>