The power of the Engage Process Platform is that you can view a process from different perspectives. It is also possible to record a lot of information for a process (step). You often do not want to see all the information in the process diagram at the same time, but only according to your information needs at that moment. In other words, only show what you want to see at that moment and in what way you want to see it.
You can find all the different options on the 'Layout' tab in the Modeler (see image below).
The options within the 'Diagram font' and 'Zoom' button groups speak for themselves, so we will only explain the button groups below.
To quickly go to a specific part of the page, click on the hyperlink below:
Show / hide
Layout
Diagram filter
Show / hide
In this button group (see image above) you will find all kinds of options to show or hide information or components in the diagram.
The boxes on the left are the most used options, so they have been given a prominent place on the tab. If you click on ‘All options’ button, you will also find these options there, as well as the other options, except for ‘Input / Output’, ‘RASCI’ and ‘Measures.
Below we explain a number of popular options of the ‘All options’ window:
- Indicators: these are small coloured icons at a process step. For the following items, you can check whether you want to show an indicator at the process steps to which it relates. There are the following types of indicators:
= Annotations: to indicate at which process steps text is in the ‘Annotations’ field.
= Findings: to indicate at which process steps one or more findings have been left behind.
= Document: to indicate at which process steps one or more documents are linked. This can also involve input and/or output of the ‘Document’ type.
= Description: to indicate at which process steps text is in the ‘Description’ field.
= Remarks: to indicate which process steps have text in the ‘Remarks field.
= Comments: to indicate which process steps have one or more comments left behind.
- Labels: checking this option will display the contents of the ‘Label’ field in the ‘Properties’ window where the step number is normally displayed. The ‘Label’ field is often used to have an alternative numbering of the steps. If you want to display ‘Labels’, the ‘Numbers’ box will automatically be unchecked.
- Notes: checking this option will display the contents of the ‘Note’ field in the ‘Properties’ window as a coloured memo at the process step.
- Connections: checking this option will display the lines between a ‘Go to’ icon and its destination icon. This option is usually unchecked to make the process look less cluttered. It therefore increases the readability of the process.
- Value added: checking this option ensures that for (almost) all process steps the background of the step will be coloured according to the selected value, namely:
- Red = none value added
- Yellow = business value added
- Green = customer value added
Please note! For each table type that you have created yourself, an option will also appear in the window that appears when you click on ‘All options’. If you check this, the value will appear where the role is normally shown. You will then see the check mark for ‘Roles’ automatically removed in this window.
Layout
Processes can be displayed in two different layouts, namely:
- Value stream: in this layout, the process is displayed based on how the process flows.
- Swimlanes: in this layout, the process is displayed based on how the process flows, but the process is divided into horizontal (swim) lanes to indicate which process steps have the same (table) value. The most obvious is a role-based swim lane. Each horizontal lane represents the process steps that are performed by a specific role.
The Engage Process Modeler has the following swim lanes as standard:
- Roles Swimlanes: this swim lane shows the process in swim lane view, where the horizontal lanes represent the roles that are involved in the process.
- Value added Swimlanes: this swim lane shows the process in swim lane view, where the horizontal lanes represent the three values of value-adding, namely: ‘Customer’, ‘Business’ and ‘None’.
Please note! For each table type that you have created yourself, a separate swim lane view option will appear behind the ‘Swimlanes’ button.
Please note! It is possible that there is a swim lane with the title ‘Undefined. This means that there are process steps for which no value has yet been assigned on the basis of which the swim lane is shown. This could mean that you forgot something or that a step cannot be assigned this value anyway.
Diagram filter
The diagram filter allows you to (temporarily) hide certain process steps to increase readability or to hide process steps that had to be visible for discussing the process, but do not add anything (anymore) for the final process map.
To use the diagram filter, proceed as follows:
- Open the process from which you want to filter out steps;
- Click on the ‘Modify filter’ button on the ‘Layout’ tab. The following window will appear:
- Now uncheck which step types you want to hide in the ‘Step types’ column, and/or;
- Now uncheck in the other columns which steps should be shown with a certain value.
Please note! In these columns, everything unchecked means that all steps are shown independently of their value. In other words, as if everything is checked.
- Click on <OK> to activate the filter.
At the top left of the process diagram, a button appears indicating that a filter is active on the process diagram. If you click on the three dots, you will see the filter options that can also be found on the ‘Layout’ tab. This makes it possible to quickly switch the diagram filter on or off, but also to adjust the diagram filter.
Tip! If you remove the check mark for ‘Step types’ at the top left, you will see that you only see the minimum process steps to be shown, namely all: start points, all stop points, choices, decisions and start and end points of parallel process branches. In other words, you see the decision tree of the process.
Tip! The ‘Evaluate’ function on the ‘Analysis’ tab performs its calculation on the process that is currently visible. If steps are hidden, they are also ignored in the calculation. Suppose you only make the manual activities of the process visible, then you can use ‘Evaluate’ to calculate the average time of the process that is spent on only the manual activities. This gives even more insight into the performance of the process and possible process optimizations.
Note! Many of the options explained above are also available in the Viewer (App).