Open the Process designer from the navigation pane. Create a new process model by clicking New Model from the ribbon menu Main. In the property pane, give the model a name.
With Drag & Drop, you can place elements on the canvas. A process always requires a start and an end element, otherwise, you will receive an error when validating the process. In between those two, you can place all elements of your choice. By double-clicking the name of the element, you get to edit the name, or you simply change the name in the element properties. To learn more about standard elements, please visit the topic Process Elements.
Tip: Make sure you click Save from time to time to save your progress.
As elements are placed on the canvas, FireStart provides line proposals depending on the position of the elements. The line proposals are only shown when the appropriate assistant (Connection Assistant) is enabled. To enable the assistant, go to the Main tab and Modeling Assistant section. You can accept line proposals by clicking the question mark. In the ribbon menu Main, you can also select Actions > Connect All to connect all line proposals at once.
Alternatively, you can drag lines between elements and their exit and entry tie points. As you place your cursor over an element the tie points are shown. Click and hold a tie point and drag a line to another tie point. Keep in mind, that lines are only possible between an exit tie point of an element and the entry tie point of another element.
Gain more space between elements
You need more space between existing elements? Right-click and hold on an empty spot on the canvas and move the cursor to the right or down to create more space. If you drag to the left or up, space gets smaller again. But this is only available when the Dynamic Space assistant is active. The Dynamic Space assistant can be found in tab Main and there click the arrow in the Modeling Assistant section.
Live Validation
FireStart provides a possibility to validate errors live. To use that, you simply need to do one thing, which is, go to the View tab in the Ribbon and click on Errors in the Annotations section. If there is an error now, the element which is not correct is marked with a small icon.
In FireStart you have three assistants which help with the modeling process. The first assistant is the Dynamic Space assistant, which is already described above. Also, the Connect Assistant is mentioned in a previous paragraph. The third assistant is quite useful, as it helps you to align elements to the grid. This assistant can be found under the Main tab, in the Modeling Assistant section as well. For people who just want to model a process and not think about the arrangement of the elements, there is an available action, which can be done after modeling. This action formats all elements and can be performed by clicking the Auto Layout button in the Main tab in section Actions.
Process Modeling Views
In FireStart you have the possibility to switch between different modeling views, even while modeling a process. There are 4 different views, the Flow Chart, BPMN 2.0, Matrix and Table. The views except the Matrix have no special feature. But in the Matrix view costs can be calculated. To learn more about the Matrix view have a look on the topic Process Views.
Modeling a complex process could be a bit unclear in the end when searching for a specific element. Therefore, FireStart has a feature to search in models. The Find button can be found in the Main tab under the section Model. With entering a word or letters it shows possible results. Double-click the result and the applicable element in the canvas gets a blue border so that you know where to find the element in the process.
Sometimes while modeling there happen to occur misfortunes, which should be undone. Therefore, you can use the Undo arrow, which you can find in the Main tab in the section Model.
Example Process:
Connecting to a Process Overview
After modeling the process, and the process map you possibly want to connect a process model to a process element in the process map. To do so, navigate to the specified process map, and click on the process element you want to link with a process model. With a click on the small arrow,
a wizard opens. This wizard can be reached over the Quad Menu (right-click the element and click on Select linked model). Now choose whether you want to link a process overview or a process model. To see all processes select the process icon in the left top corner.
Select the process to link and click Finish. After that, the small arrow was replaced by the process icon.
With a click on the process icon, you navigate to the linked process model.
