Introduction
Flowingly's modeler has a few hidden shortcuts and nuances that can help speed up the design of your process maps and workflows.
Prerequisites
These can only be used within the Modeler which means to one of the following roles is required to utilise these:
Flow Model Editor
Flow Model Administrator
Business Administrator
An equivalent custom role
Instructions
Default Starting Point
Once a new map has been created you will be presented with a default map as seen below. This will include:
A Start element
3 steps assigned to the logged in user
An End element
If the option to create a Process Map or Workflow with AI is selected a map will be automatically generated instead.
Quick Tips for the Modeler
To move any element on the canvas around simply click on and drag them around using your mouse. Add more elements to your process map by dragging and dropping them in from the left-hand side menu.
Use the menu on the left-hand side of the modeler to add more elements to your map by dragging them into the canvas. This includes decision points, custom emails, diverge/merge, pools, and components.
There is no limit to how many elements can be added into your map but keep simplicity in mind when designing your maps to ensure your process is easy to understand.
If a new element is added, connect these to the rest of your map by drawing the connection arrows in. Outside of decision point and diverge/merge elements, each element can only have a single “to” and “from” arrow which look best when moving from left to right.
Hover your mouse over any element on the canvas and a blue circle should appear on the right-hand side of that element.
Click and drag from the blue dot to the element you want to connect to, and it should automatically lock on and connect. This will always connect to the left-hand side of the second element and cannot be moved.
You can use these default elements to begin building out your map or delete them and start from a blank canvas. To delete any element within the modeler, simply click on the element and hit backspace or delete on your keyboard. To ensure you are deleting the correct element, look for the blue box surrounding the element as seen below.
To delete multiple elements in one attempt you can:
Hold down the control key and click multiple elements
Hold down a mouse click on the white background for 2 seconds and drag the pink box to highlight multiple elements. You must cover the entirety of the element for it to be selected.
E.g. Only Step 1 and Step 2 will be highlighted
E.g. Step 1, Step 2, and Step 3 will be highlighted
If more than one element has been highlighted you can move them around by clicking and dragging these elements around the canvas.
This can be utilised when moving elements around a map that are grouped together and need to be moved to a different section of a map or if you need to add a step in-between two steps that already exist.
Additionally, you can copy and paste one or more elements if a section is repeated in a map by using control+c and control+v on your keyboard. There is no control+z or undo shortcut.