Find your way around
Sign in, learn the parts of the editor, create and manage diagrams, and see how your work is saved.
Sign in for the first time
Penna is invite-only. Your admin invites you by email and sends you a one-time sign-in link themselves; the app doesn't send any email.
- Open the link your admin sent you.
- Choose a password of at least 8 characters and type it again.
- Select Save password. You're signed in and taken to your diagrams.
The link works once and expires after 7 days. If it has expired or you've already used it, the page says the link doesn't work. Ask your admin for a new one.
Sign in after that
On the sign-in page, enter your email and password and select Sign in. You stay signed in on that browser for 30 days.
If your workspace has Google sign-in set up, you'll also see Continue with Google. It only lets you in when the Google account uses the same email address your admin invited. Capital letters don't matter, but the address has to match. If it doesn't, the sign-in page tells you that address isn't on the invite list.
Forgot your password?
Ask your admin for a new sign-in link. It lets you choose a new password, and your old one stops working once you save it.
The parts of the editor
- Rail. The column of buttons down the left edge is for the whole app. At the top, Search. Then Diagrams, Templates, Outline and Version history, which open the sidebar on that panel; selecting the button that's already showing closes the sidebar again. At the bottom, Settings, and the round button with your initial, which opens Settings too.
- The diagram fills the middle, in one card. Along its top: the diagram's name on the left, the View switch for Flowmark and the diagram in the middle, and Share, Export and Assistant on the right. Below that, Flowmark and the diagram side by side. Undo and Redo float in the diagram's top-left corner, and the zoom controls and Show properties in its top-right. The Properties panel floats over the right side of the diagram when it's open. See The editor.
- Assistant on the right. See The assistant.
- Status bar along the bottom of the diagram's card. It shows whether your changes are saved, the number of problems (selecting it opens the Problems panel under the diagram), how many comments are open, once there are any, who else is changing the diagram right now, what's selected, and how many elements the diagram has.
Search and run commands
Press ⌘ K (Ctrl K on Windows and Linux), or select Search at the top of the rail, to search your diagrams, the current diagram's elements and the app's commands in one place. Use the arrow keys and Enter to pick one. With the field empty it lists the commands and your recent diagrams; elements show up once you type. ⌘ P searches only your diagrams, and ⇧ ⌘ O only the elements. See Keyboard shortcuts for the rest.
Arrange the panels
Drag the gap between two panels, or the line between Flowmark and the diagram, to resize them. Double-click it to put that panel back to its usual size, and drag it well past the panel's smallest size to close the panel. Reset panel sizes in Settings, or in the search menu, puts every size back.
The app remembers which panels are open and how big they are, in this browser. When the window is too narrow to fit the sidebar or the assistant beside your work, it opens over it instead; press Esc or click outside it to close it.
Your first diagram
If you don't have any diagrams yet, the app opens a copy of the Purchase request template so there's something on the canvas to explore. It's yours to edit or delete.
Start from a template
The Templates panel lists four templates: Purchase request, IT incident management, Employee onboarding and Order to cash. Selecting one creates a new diagram from it; the diagram you had open stays as it was. The same panel has a short Flowmark syntax guide.
Start from an empty canvas
Open the Diagrams panel, select New diagram, then BPMN process. You get an empty diagram called "Untitled process" with three ways to begin:
- Describe it opens the assistant so you can describe the process and have it drafted. See The assistant.
- Add start event places a start event, which you can then build on step by step. See The editor.
- Use a template opens the Templates panel.
You can also type the process in the Flowmark pane. See Flowmark.
To rename a diagram, click its name at the top left, type the new name and press Enter. Esc cancels.
Bring in an existing file
In the Diagrams panel, open New diagram (the plus button) and select Import .bpmn file… to open a .bpmn or .xml file from another BPMN tool. If the file has things the app doesn't model, such as data objects, groups or sub-process contents, the app names what it left out. See Elements the app can't show.
How saving works
There's no save button. Every change is saved to your account shortly after you make it, and the status bar at the bottom of the editor says Saving… and then, for a moment, Saved.
If you lose your connection, the status bar says Offline. Saves when you reconnect. Keep the tab open: the app keeps your changes and sends them when the connection comes back. If you try to close the tab before they're saved, your browser asks you to confirm.
Your diagrams live in your account, not in the browser, so you see the same ones on any device you sign in from. If the same diagram is open in two tabs, or your AI app is editing it, the other open tabs update as the changes land.
When two places edit at once
If a newer version was saved somewhere else while you were editing, the newer version wins and the app tells you that the diagram changed somewhere else. Your edit isn't lost: undo switches back to it.
Version history
Every change also goes into the diagram's version history, so you can go back to an earlier state at any time. See Version history.
Duplicate a diagram
In the Diagrams panel, point to the diagram and select Duplicate diagram, or run Duplicate diagram from the search menu. The app makes a copy with " copy" added to the name, such as "Purchase request copy", and opens it. The copy's version history starts with one entry, Copied from and the original's name. The original stays as it was.
Delete a diagram
In the Diagrams panel, point to the diagram and select Delete diagram, then confirm with Delete. This can't be undone, and any view-only link to the diagram stops working.
Use the app on a phone
In a window narrower than 720 pixels, such as on a phone, the app is for looking at diagrams, not changing them:
- You see one pane at a time. The diagram shows first, and the View switch at the top changes between Diagram and Flowmark. The button at the top left opens the sidebar.
- You can pan and zoom the diagram, and read the Flowmark text, but not edit either one.
- There's no assistant, no Share button and no Templates panel. The diagram's name can't be changed.
- The sidebar opens over the diagram. You can switch diagrams there, but not create, import or delete them, and you can read the version history but not restore from it.
- The Export menu works as usual, and the Problems panel lists the checks.
On a tablet or anything wider, you get the full editor.