Process and lanes

The process line sets the process name. Put it first.

Lanes are optional. Leave them out when one person or team does all the work:

process Send invoice
start Order shipped
service Create invoice
send Email invoice
end Invoice sent

Use lanes for rolesCopy Anchor Link

When more than one role is involved, give each one a lane:

• lanes A | B | C fixes their order from top to bottom.
• lane B puts every node after it in lane B, until the next lane line.
• A lane you switch to without listing it in lanes is added after the others, in the order you first use it.
• Nodes that come before any lane line go in the first lane.

Switching lanes doesn't break a path. In this example each step still connects to the one before it, across three lanes:

process Customer refund
lanes Customer | Support | Finance

lane Customer
start Refund requested
lane Support
user Check order
lane Finance
service Issue refund
lane Customer
end Refund received

Lanes are for your own roles and departments. For a party outside your organization, such as a customer you exchange messages with or a supplier, use a pool. See Pools and messages.

To describe the process itself, add doc: lines before the first node. See Documentation and notes.