Process Lanes

The lanes in a process, often called swim lanes, provide a way for you to divide your process into different logical parts. You can add, insert, resize, and remove swim lanes in the Process Designer. You can define rules that are triggered when links between steps in a process cross a boundary between lanes. The rules define additional steps to run when processing crosses swim lane boundaries.

You arrange process operators visually in one or more swim lanes. Parallel lines show the lane boundaries. The default lane orientation for a new process is vertical. Initially, a new process has a single lane, labeled Lane_0. Additional lanes are named in sequence as you add them, for example, Lane_1, Lane_2, and so forth. You can customize the names to arrange branches of a process in your own meaningful way.

When there are multiple lanes in a process, you can define lane change rules. These rules specify operator sequences that are invoked only when execution of a process crosses between two lanes. A lane change rule looks like any sequence of operators on the Main Editor tab, except that each rule starts with a Change Lane operator instead of the Start operator. Properties on the Change Lane operator define the transition between source and destination lanes that invoke the sequence of operators linked to the Change Lane operator.

You can add any number of lanes on the Main Editor tab and then form links that cross lane boundaries between operators in the process. Then, on the Lane Change Handler tab, you define sequences of operators invoked when execution crosses boundaries. When execution of a process crosses a lane boundary, it invokes a process on the lane change handler that is defined to occur for the particular transition (such as from lane A to lane B).

If you define more than one rule for a particular transition, the application uses the first existing rule in the following order of priority:

Priority	Matches and runs
1	Rule defined for specific source and destination lanes (A to B)
2	Rule defined for a specific source lane (A to any)
3	Rule defined for a specific destination lane (any to B)
4	Rule defined for any two lanes (any to any)
5	No rule if none of the matches listed above exist.

If no lane change rules are defined in the process object for the current instance of a process, the application looks for a matching lane change rule in the default process object specified in the property settings for the orchestrator. This occurs only if no lane change rules are defined in the current process object. The application does not check the default process object if there is any lane change rule defined in the current process object, even when no match occurs.

When processing crosses a transition between lanes, the application:

Suspends the process after completing currently executing operators.
Tries to match a rule defined in the process object or in the default process for the orchestrator in the following order:

Lane Change Rules	Matches	Action
Are defined in the process object	A rule in the process object in the order of priority listed above	Run the rule defined in the process object.
Are not defined in the process object	A rule in the default process object for the orchestrator in the order of priority listed above.	Run the rule defined in the default process object.
	No match.	Ignore the transition.

Then, the application continues processing the process.