Swimlanes are a way to visually group states in an
application workflow, so others can quickly understand the workflow design. A
swimlane typically represents either the activities performed by the same role
or participant, or a distinct phase of the process defined by the workflow.
For example, you could put all states that are associated with
software development tasks into one swimlane. Another swimlane could include
states that are associated with testing tasks. The
Any,
Deleted, and
Email states that have no owner could be moved
into an "unassigned" swimlane below or to the right of the other
swimlanes.
Note the following points about swimlanes:
- Swimlanes are displayed in the workflow as horizontal or vertical
bands. You can toggle between a horizontal or vertical orientation.
- The left and right edges of horizontal swimlanes, and the top and
bottom edges of vertical swimlanes automatically cover the entire workflow.
- You can tailor the appearance of swimlanes by modifying their
colors, labels, boundary lines, and so on.
- A swimlane encloses the states that are in its boundaries when you
add the swimlane to the workflow. You then drag states among swimlanes to
depict the process in the best way.
- A sub-workflow inherits swimlanes from its parent workflow.
- Swimlanes are included in the workflow diagrams that users
available to users.
Key Benefits
- Swimlanes are an efficient way to organize the activities or phases
encompassed by an application workflow.
- Other designers and users can understand the workflow design at a
glance.
- Numerous formatting options let you tailor the appearance of
swimlanes to your needs.
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