chesterdocs

#Your first process

Build a small process that hands one task to a person, deploy it, and run it end to end.

The process is the smallest one that does something visible: it starts, asks one person to review something in a form, and ends. Every step links to the page that explains it in full.

flowchart LR
  subgraph Designer
    direction TB
    A["1 · Create a project"] --> B["2 · Create the process"]
    B --> C["3 · Make it executable"]
    C --> D["4 · Draw it and<br/>configure the task"]
    D --> E["5 · Deploy"]
  end
  subgraph Execution
    direction TB
    F["6 · Start it<br/>from a catalog"] --> G["7 · Work on the task"]
  end
  Designer --> Execution
  Execution --> H["8 · Follow the run<br/>(Designer · Monitoring & logs)"]

#1. Create a project

On the Designer dashboard, open Create new and choose Project. Name it and click Create project. A project is the top of the hierarchy every process lives in — see Organise your work.

#2. Create the process

Open Create new again and choose Process. In the form that opens:

  1. Name the process.
  2. Pick the Project, then an Area and a Group. If the project has none yet, choose ＋ New area… and ＋ New group … and name them here.
  3. Choose a Starting point: Empty diagram starts with a single start event; Import BPMN file uploads a .bpmn or .xml file you already have.
  4. Click Open editor.

The new process opens in the same tab. Until you open the editor you can close the tab and nothing is created.

❌ Two starting points are shown but not available yet: From template and With Navigator. Start from an empty diagram instead.

#3. Make it executable

A new process is documentation only: it can be drawn and described, but never started. To change that, click Edit, open the Details tab, set Executable to Yes and click Save. Only then does the diagram show the settings for forms and systems, and only then is it validated as you model. See Process master data.

💡 On a project's own page the create form offers an Executable process checkbox. It is off by default; tick it to skip this step. The dashboard's Create new has no such box. Check the Executable card on the Details tab either way.

#4. Draw it and configure the task

Open the BPMN tab in edit mode — click Edit again if you left it. While you edit, nobody else can change the process — see Edit without overwriting each other.

  1. Draw start event → user task → end event from the palette on the left, and connect them.
  2. Select the user task and configure it in the properties panel. A user task needs two things before it is valid:
    • a form — what the person sees and fills in. Build it on the Forms tab; see Forms;
    • an assignment — who gets the task: a named user, a user group, or a person worked out from the process data.
  3. Click Save. Discard throws away everything since you clicked Edit.

The badge in the bottom-left corner of the canvas counts the open validation problems. It reads No issues once the process is ready to deploy. See Modelling processes.

#5. Deploy it

Click Deploy and choose where it goes:

Target Use it for
Development Trying it out. It switches itself off after 30 runs or 24 hours.
Production Real work. Only a production deployment can be started from the Execution app.

Deploying freezes the process as it is now. Later edits change nothing that is already deployed until you deploy again. See Deploying a process.

#6. Start it from a catalog

People start processes in the Execution app, from a catalog. An administrator adds your process to a catalog and assigns the catalog to the people who should see it, under Users → Catalog management in the Designer — see Collaboration.

The process can be started from the catalog once all three hold: it is executable, it has a production deployment, and it has a plain start event. Open Process catalogs in the Execution app, find the process and start it. See Running processes.

#7. Work on the task

The user task appears in My tasks for the person it is assigned to. They open it, fill in the form and complete it. The process moves on at once, reaches the end event and finishes.

#8. Follow the run

Every run is an instance. In the Designer, Monitoring & logs lists every instance of every process with its state, and opens each one step by step. See Monitoring. People who took part can follow their own runs under My instances in the Execution app.