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The Process Designer provides a visual, BPMN 2.0-compliant environment where you can create, edit, and manage business process workflows. Whether you’re building simple linear flows or complex branching processes with multiple decision points, the designer gives you the tools to model your business logic effectively.

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Process Designer interface

When you open a process definition, you’ll see the following essential elements:
The name of your process definition appears at the top, providing a clear identifier for the workflow. Click on the name to access process-level settings including permissions, expiry time, platform configuration, and task management options.
The left panel contains the node palette with all available BPMN elements you can drag and drop onto the canvas. Nodes are organized by category: events, tasks, gateways, and subprocesses.
Hover over any node in the palette to see a tooltip with its name and primary use case.
The Navigation section allows you to configure how users navigate through your process on web and mobile platforms. You can create steppers, modals, and other navigation structures that organize user tasks.

Navigation Areas

Changes to your process are automatically saved as you work, eliminating the need to manually save. The autosave indicator shows when your last change was saved, ensuring your work is never lost.
Autosave works on draft versions. To make changes permanent and available to other environments, you need to commit your project version.
The main canvas area is where you design your process flow by adding nodes, connecting them with sequences, and organizing them into swimlanes. The canvas supports zoom, pan, and offers visual feedback for validation warnings.
The warning indicator displays misconfigurations that could prevent your process from executing correctly. Warnings are platform-specific and help ensure your navigation structure and UI configuration align with your selected platforms (Web, Mobile, or Omnichannel).
Address all warnings before publishing your process to production to avoid runtime errors.
When you select a node, the right panel displays its configuration options. Here you can set node properties, add actions, configure UI elements for user tasks, and define business rules.
We have designed FlowX.AI components to closely resemble their BPMN counterparts for ease of use.

BPMN nodes

Comprehensive guide to all available node types

BPMN 101

Learn BPMN fundamentals through FlowX Academy

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Working with the canvas

The Process Designer canvas provides several features to help you efficiently create and manage process flows:

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Canvas navigation

  • Zoom: Use the mouse wheel or zoom controls to zoom in and out of your process
  • Pan: Click and drag on empty canvas space to move around large processes

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Adding and connecting nodes

1

Add a node

Drag a node from the left palette onto the canvas, or click a node type to add it to the center of your current view.
2

Connect nodes

Click on a node to select it, then click the arrow icon that appears. Click on the target node to create a sequence flow connection.
You can also create connections by dragging from the arrow icon on the source node to the target node.
3

Configure the node

Select the node and use the right panel to configure its properties, actions, and behavior.

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Organizing your process

Swimlanes: Organize nodes by roles or departments using swimlanes. This helps visualize which parts of the process are handled by which teams and enables role-based access control. Layout best practices:
  • Arrange your process flow from left to right for better readability
  • Use vertical spacing to separate parallel branches
  • Group related nodes close together
  • Keep crossing sequence flows to a minimum
  • Use subprocesses to encapsulate complex logic

Swimlanes

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Validating your process

Before publishing a process, ensure it meets all requirements:

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Validation rules

The Process Designer automatically validates your process and displays warnings for:
  • Missing required nodes: Processes must have at least one START and one END node
  • Disconnected nodes: All nodes must be reachable through sequence flows
  • Missing configurations: User tasks without assigned navigation areas or UI elements
  • Platform mismatches: UI configurations that don’t align with selected platforms (Web/Mobile/Omnichannel)
  • Permission issues: Swimlanes without proper role assignments
  • Invalid expressions: Business rules or conditions with syntax errors
Click on any warning to navigate directly to the problematic node or configuration.

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Testing your process

Before deploying to production:
  1. Start a test instance: Use the test function to start a process instance in your development environment
  2. Monitor execution: Watch how tokens move through your process and verify all paths work correctly
  3. Check data flow: Ensure data is properly captured and passed between nodes
  4. Test all branches: Verify that gateways route correctly based on different conditions
  5. Validate integrations: Confirm external system connections work as expected

Starting a process

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Common validation errors

Cause: The process hasn’t been set as published or doesn’t exist in the target environment.Solution: Ensure your process is part of a committed project version and deployed to the environment.
Cause: Missing or misconfigured START node.Solution: Add a START node and ensure it has proper permissions configured if multiple start nodes exist.
Cause: Multiple START nodes defined without start conditions to differentiate them.Solution: Add start conditions to each START node or remove extra START nodes.
Cause: A user task node hasn’t been assigned to any navigation area.Solution: Open the Navigation view and assign the user task to an appropriate navigation area.

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Collaboration and versioning

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Working with multiple users

Multiple team members can work on processes simultaneously:
  • Concurrent editing: Multiple users can view and edit processes within the same draft version
  • Real-time updates: Changes made by other users appear automatically when you refresh
  • Conflict prevention: The system prevents conflicting changes through optimistic locking
  • Change tracking: The audit log records who made what changes and when
When working with multiple users on the same process, communicate about major structural changes to avoid conflicts.

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Version management

Processes are versioned as part of projects:
  • Draft versions: Work-in-progress changes that can be edited
  • Committed versions: Finalized snapshots that are immutable
  • Version comparison: Compare different versions to see what changed
  • Audit trail: Track all changes with timestamps and user information

Versioning

Learn about project versioning

Audit log

View change history

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Best practices

Follow these guidelines for maintainable, performant processes:Design principles:
  • Start simple with START and END nodes, then add complexity incrementally
  • Use clear, descriptive names for nodes and actions that explain their purpose
  • Document complex business logic in node descriptions
  • Create subprocesses for reusable logic or to simplify complex flows
  • Limit process complexity - if a process has more than 20-30 nodes, consider breaking it into subprocesses
Performance optimization:
  • Minimize the number of nodes in frequently executed paths
  • Use parallel gateways judiciously - each branch creates additional tokens
  • Avoid deeply nested subprocesses when possible
  • Consider using timer events instead of polling for external events
Naming conventions:
  • Use a consistent format like [Department]_[Function]_[Action] for process names
  • Name nodes to describe what they do, not what they are (e.g., “Validate Customer Data” instead of “Task Node 1”)
  • Use uppercase for process-level constants and lowercase with underscores for data keys
Testing strategy:
  • Test all decision branches with different input data
  • Verify error handling paths work correctly
  • Test with realistic data volumes for collection iterations
  • Validate all integration points before deployment

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Troubleshooting

Symptoms: Changes aren’t being saved or the autosave indicator shows an error.Solutions:
  • Check your network connection
  • Verify you have edit permissions for the project
  • Ensure the project is in draft status (committed versions can’t be edited)
  • Try refreshing the page and re-applying your changes
  • Check if another user has locked the resource
Symptoms: Unable to create sequence flows between nodes.Solutions:
  • Verify you’re connecting compatible node types (e.g., END nodes can’t have outgoing sequences)
  • Check if a sequence already exists between the nodes
  • Ensure nodes are in the same process (not trying to connect across subprocess boundaries)
  • Try zooming in - connection points might be difficult to target at small zoom levels
Symptoms: Runtime errors when trying to start process instances.Solutions:
  • Review and resolve all validation warnings
  • Verify the process is published and included in an active build
  • Check that users have appropriate permissions (execute role)
  • Ensure all required integrations are configured and accessible
  • Review the exceptions log for detailed error messages

Failed process start

Symptoms: Configured UI components don’t appear when running the process.Solutions:
  • Verify user tasks are assigned to navigation areas
  • Check that UI elements are configured for the correct platform (Web/Mobile)
  • Ensure actions are set to “Manual” if they should be triggered by user interaction
  • Validate that the process platform setting matches your deployment (Web Only, Mobile Only, or Omnichannel)
  • Check hide/disable expressions aren’t preventing element display

Process Instance Monitoring

Learn how to monitor and debug running process instances
 In the following sections, we will provide more details on how to use the Process Designer and its components.

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Process definition

The process is the core building block of the platform. Think of it as a representation of your business use case, for example making a request for a new credit card, placing an online food order, registering your new car or creating an online fundraiser supporting your cause.
A process is nothing more than a series of steps that need to be followed in order to get to the desired outcome: getting a new credit card, gathering online donations from friends or having your lunch brought to you. These steps involve a series of actions, whether automated or handled by a human, that allows you to complete your chosen business objective.

Process definition

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Process instance

Once the desired processes are defined in the platform, they are ready to be used. Each time a process needs to be used, for example, each time a customer wants to request a new credit card, a new instance of the specified process definition is started in the platform. Think of the process definition as a blueprint for a house, and of the process instance as each house of that type that is being built.
From this point on, the platform takes care of following the process flow, handling the necessary actions, storing and interpreting the resulting data.

Process Instance

Exceptions