Connectors determine the order of activities and events in the process. Naming connectors improves the readability of the flow chart and also serve as button names on task forms.
For example, the task Fill in leave request has two outgoing connectors, Send for approval and End process.
On the task form, these connectors look like this:
Create and set up a connector
To connect two activities, hover over the first one, click one of the crosses on its edges, hold down the left mouse button, and draw a connection line.
To open the settings of a connector, double-click on it in the process diagram.
On the General tab in the settings, you can rename the connector and add its description.
For connectors that go out of Tasks, you will also see an additional tab, Transition Button. Connectors going out of gateways are configured on the Conditions tab.
General tab
- Name. Specify the name to be displayed on the connector button in the task.
- Description. Enter the text of the tooltip that will be shown on the task form.
Connector going out of a standard task
For connectors going out of Tasks, you can choose the transition button’s color, set up data validation, or add a confirmation dialog box.
Transition Button tab
- Transition button color. Select the color of the button that will be displayed on the task form.
- Transition validation. Select a validation option. The task will be validated when the user clicks on the transition button.
- Validate task form. The user will not be able to finish the task without filling out all required fields on the task form.
- Check for active subtasks. The user will not be able to finish the task if there are unfinished subtasks associated with it.
You can select both options or disable form validation entirely.
- Confirmation. You can set up a confirmation dialog box that will appear when the user clicks on the transition button. Select one of the following options:
- Without confirmation. The task will be finished as soon as the user clicks on the transition button, without confirmation.
- Confirmation dialog box. Select the size of the dialog box and enter the confirmation text. When the user clicks on the transition button, a pop-up window will appear, allowing him or her to cancel the action or to confirm it.
- Form. Set up a complex confirmation form and add process context variables to it. For example, you can ask a user to leave a comment before finishing the task. Select the dialog box, specify the confirmation text, and click the Configure form button to add new fields to the form.
On the opened Form Settings tab, select a variable from the process context or add a new one.
Connector going out of a gateway or a multiple instance task
For connectors that go out of gateways or multiple instance tasks, the Conditions button becomes available. The process will go down one path or another depending on the connector conditions.
Conditions tab
- Operand 1. Specify a variable from the process context. Certain values are available for connectors going out of certain tasks, for example, for the Approval activity you can specify the percentage of approval or rejection.
- Operation. Specify a comparison operator to check a specific condition.
- Operand 2. Enter the value at which the condition will be executed.
- Logical Operator is used to determine how several conditions are checked. If the result evaluates to True, the process continues down this connector:
- AND. The result is True if both conditions that this operator connects are met.
- OR. The result is True if at least one of the conditions that this operator connects is met.
- OR NOT. The result is True if the first condition is met and does not correspond with the second condition.
- AND NOT. The result is True if one condition is met or the other one is not met.
Please note that the conditions are checked in the order they are listed in the connector settings.
In multiple instance tasks, conditions are checked each time one of the executors completes the task.
If you don’t specify conditions for the connectors going out of a gateway or a multiple instance task, you will see a warning at the bottom of the page when validating the process.
For more information about using transitions with conditions in processes, see the Connector use cases article.