Editing and preview
The table, the XML, and the lifecycle of a single edit.
The editor sits right below the diagram, on the same screen. Wherever you edit, you see the diagram and all the numbers change with it instantly.
Locked so you cannot slip
The editor is locked by default: every field is read-only. Click ✎ Edit to unlock, and when you are done click Save changes — that button both writes to your account and locks it again. That way there is no chance of mistyping into a number and not knowing what you changed.
Building a process from zero
A file is not required. On the My processes screen, click
+ Create process and pick no file: you get the skeleton
Start → Step 1 → End to edit straight away.
The Steps tab has three buttons for adding elements, matching the three BPMN kinds:
| Button | Creates | Use when |
|---|---|---|
| + Step | A task | A piece of work someone does, taking time and cost. |
| + Condition | A gateway (XOR by default) | Where the process branches. Change it to parallel (AND) or inclusive (OR) in the Type column. |
| + Event | An intermediate event | A waiting milestone, a signal being received, or adding a second end point. |
A new element is not dropped loose: it is inserted right before the End point and connected at both ends, so adding ten steps is ten clicks rather than hand-building twenty flows. If you want something different, edit it on the Flows tab.
A loop-back (rework) flow is also declared on the Flows tab: add a flow going from the condition gateway back to the step that has to be redone, then fill in the probability. For example, if 30% of cases have to be reassessed, that step runs 1/(1−0,3) ≈ 1,43 times on average, and every expected figure already accounts for that repetition.
Two steps cannot share an Id. Type a duplicate and the Id field flashes red and the old value is kept.
The four editing tabs
| Tab | What you can edit |
|---|---|
| Steps | Id, name, type, subtype, time, cost. Add/remove rows, drag to reorder. |
| Flows | What connects to what, the condition label, probability %. |
| XML | Edit the draw.io / BPMN 2.0 XML directly, then apply it. |
| Units | Currency, the number of loop turns to unroll when listing scenarios, the number of simulation runs. |
Breaking a step down into line items
The Actions column of the step table has a Details button. In that dialog, turn on “Break this step down into detailed line items” to declare each small piece of work: the line item name, who does it, time, cost.
Once it is broken down, the time and cost of the step are the sum of the line items and
can no longer be typed in — the number fields turn yellow with a Σ marker. Turn the breakdown off
and you are back to typing them in as before.
The step “Assessment 30 minutes” is one estimated number. Break it down and you see: reading the file 18 minutes (officer) + writing the report 12 minutes (team leader). Now you know who spends time on what — and when you need to cut, you know where to cut.
Export Detailed line items (.csv) to get this whole table for every step. Note: .drawio and .bpmn files carry only the totals, not the line item list.
The lifecycle of a single edit
- You type into a field.
- After ~450 ms with no further typing, the browser sends the whole model to
/api/processes/<id>/preview. - The server recomputes and redraws, returning the SVG along with the rendered HTML fragments.
- The page swaps the content of the corresponding areas. Nothing has been written to the database yet.
- Only clicking Save changes really writes, and files the old copy into the history.
So that the preview and the saved copy share exactly one calculation codebase. If the formulas were rewritten in JavaScript, the two sides would drift apart sooner or later and users would see numbers jump after clicking save. A 17-step model recomputes fully in about 25 ms, so the latency is negligible.
Drag and drop to reorder steps
Drag the ⠿ handle at the start of a row to rearrange the table. This only changes the display order for readability — the running flow is decided by the Flows table, not by the row order.
Editing via XML
Three buttons on the XML tab:
- Get current XML — regenerate the draw.io XML from the model as it stands.
- Get the original file — the exact content of the file you uploaded.
- Apply XML — reparse it and update the preview.
Validity checking
After each recomputation, the tool inspects the structure and shows warnings right below the metric cards:
| Level | Means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Error | The result is not trustworthy, you must fix it | A flow points at a step that does not exist · a loop with no way out |
| Warning | It still computes but may not be what you meant | A parallel gateway with no join · a step unreachable from the start point |
| Note | Information, nothing to do | The process has 1 loop-back flow |