A Flowchart starts as one Start step and grows from there. It lives in the palette's Build category in Diagram mode. Every time you add, remove or change a step, the whole chart is laid out again, so it stays clean and tidy without you ever dragging a box into line.
Take the tour
The first time you select a flowchart step, a small Tour toolbar appears beside its toolbar. Press Play for a short tour on your own chart: Add Step and Add Branch (and the Tab and Enter keys), Step Type, the Lane menu on a chart with swimlanes, and the Flowchart menu. Press the cross if you would rather not; either way it is not offered again. To be offered it again, open Settings, then Tours, open Element Tours and switch Flowchart Tour back on.
Growing a chart
Press Tab to add the next step, connected from the one you are on, then start typing. The new step is already selected, so your first key starts its label.
Press Enter to add a parallel step: another step from the same step the one you are on came from, laid out beside it.
Press Escape when you are done. What you typed is kept; a new step you left empty is removed, so a Tab pressed one time too many costs nothing.
The keys work from inside a step's label too, so you can type a whole process without stopping. Press Shift+Enter for a new line in a label.
With the mouse or on a touch screen, select a step and use Add Step and Add Branch on its toolbar, or the quick-add + on each side of it.
Step types
New steps are Process steps. To change one, select it and pick from Step Type on its toolbar, or right-click it and open Flowchart, then Step Type. The types are the classic flowchart symbols:
- Start / End: where the flow begins or finishes.
- Process: a step someone or something does.
- Decision: a question. Its first exit is labelled Yes and its second No; edit the labels to say anything you like.
- Input / Output: data entering or leaving the flow.
- Document: a document the flow produces or reads.
- Database: stored data.
- Preparation: setting up before a step.
- Connector: an on-page jump, labelled with a letter.
Joining steps and loops
To join two steps that already exist, draw an arrow from one to the other, as you would between any two shapes. The chart is laid out again with the new connector: two branches can merge into one step, and an arrow back to an earlier step makes a loop, which is drawn round the outside of the chart so it never crosses the steps in between.
Always tidy
You can drag a step wherever you like, but the next change to the chart puts it back in its place: a flowchart is always laid out for you. To lay it out on demand, right-click a step, open Flowchart, then Chart, and choose Tidy Flowchart. The first step never moves, so the chart grows from where you started it.
Direction
A flowchart flows Down unless it has swimlanes, when it flows Right. To change it, right-click a step, open Flowchart, then Direction, and pick one. The whole chart turns, lanes included.
Swimlanes
Swimlanes are optional. Choose Add Lane under Chart in the Flowchart menu: a chart without lanes gets two, with every step in the first, and each further Add Lane adds one more. Rename a lane by editing its title.
A new step lands in the same lane as the step it grew from. To move a step to another lane, pick the lane from Lane on its toolbar, or drag it into the lane. To reorder lanes, drag one past another. Deleting a lane moves its steps into the first lane.
Templates
The Flowchart, Decision tree, Swimlane and Approval workflow templates are flowcharts too, so you can select any of their steps and keep growing them with Tab and Enter.
Who can do what
On a shared board, an Editor can do everything here. A Participant can grow a chart with Tab, Enter, Add Step and Add Branch, and write on its steps, but not change step types, the direction or the lanes. A Viewer can only look.
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