Build Your Process Model Manually

How to Model a Process in ProcessMind

Start in the Process Catalog and click New in the upper-right corner. ProcessMind opens a dialog where you can enter the process’s basic information:

• Architecture Level and Parent to place the process in your architecture
• Name and Process Code to identify it
• Short Description to summarize its purpose
• Status, Classification, and Version for its governance metadata
• Owner and, if needed, Locked for change

Click Save to create the process and return to the catalog. This creates a process placeholder, so you can continue adding more processes before modeling them. Click Save and edit to create the process and open it immediately in the start wizard. The wizard lets you choose how to continue, including manual modeling, importing a model, generating a model, or starting from process-mining data. See Create, Upload, or Generate Your Process Model for details on each path.

After choosing a modeling path, you enter the modeling canvas and can build your process using BPMN 2.0 elements. If you do not have a workspace yet, start a free trial to follow along.

Canvas Menu: Left Sidebar

The modeling options are located on the left-hand side of the screen.

You can choose from several palettes:

• Core Elements: The most commonly used elements. Ideal once you are familiar with the basics.
• BPMN Elements: The full BPMN 2.0 library, organized into groups like events, tasks, and gateways, including advanced elements like swimlanes and subprocesses.
• VSM Elements: Value stream mapping elements, used for Lean-style process analysis. For more information, see Value Stream Mapping.
• Analytics: Charts and AI elements you can drop onto the canvas to visualize performance, bottlenecks, and more.
• Architecture Levels: Child processes of your architecture levels, shown as draggable tasks.

The sidebar can be collapsed to a compact icon-only mode, and you can use the search box to quickly find elements by name.

Placing and Editing Elements

• Drag and drop any element from the sidebar onto the canvas.
• After placing an element, click it to:
  • Rename it
  • Add documentation
  • Change the element type (if compatible)
  • Add task types, markers, or event timing

You can only convert an element if the new type is compatible with the incoming and outgoing connections; incompatible options are automatically hidden.

Element Settings Panel

When you select an element, the right-hand panel displays configuration options.

You can:

• Add or edit documentation (first tab)
• Rename the element
• Change the task type, task marker, or event behavior
• Switch gateway types or intermediate events

To delete an element, select it and press Delete or use the trash icon in the context menu.

Creating Connections

• Hover over an element to show a small arrow.
• Click and drag the arrow to another element to create a connection.
• To remove a connection, click on it and press Delete or click the trash icon.

All available actions for a selected element are shown in its context menu.

Related topics

• Create, Upload, or Generate Your Process Model: the ways to create a process.
• Constructing a BPMN Diagram: build your model step by step.