Using a Main Lane

If you want one role to be able to perform all process steps, but other roles to only be able to perform parts of the process, you can work with a main lane and sublanes.

Basic rules for modeling a main lane:

• All sublanes must be nested into the main lane:

• The whole process must be modeled within the lane elements:

Main Lane Behavior

• If a user is not assigned any of inner lane roles, the role(s) of the main lane apply.

• This does not work if the main lane has no role at all. In this case, the roles of the inner lanes have a higher priority!

Lane Handling

Start with adding the main lane:

To activate the lane element, click its border or header:

If the element is active, an indicator is displayed in the lower right corner and the border of the element is thicker:

To create sublanes, drag the next lane elements onto the header of the main lane element. Drop the new element on the border of an existing lane to position the new sublane. To create a sublane within a sublane, you can drag the element onto the body of an existing lane.

Click on the image to run through the animated version once. Click again to repeat.

Deletion Behavior of Lane Elements

If you delete a lane element, it is erased from your work area including all content!
However, you can use restore the deletion by using Undo in the BPMN toolbar.

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