Creating entry points

By default, each process has one entry point that is its start. You can create another entry point to a process by selecting a process step and pressing the Start button in the Insert steps group of the Home tab.

An  new start step appears at the left bottom corner of the process diagram and is pointing to the selected step.

In this way, you create a multi-entrant process that can start from different process steps. The set of properties of each of the start steps is automatically extended with the Frequencies property that specify the relative frequencies of selecting particular entry point. This Frequencies property is common for all starts.

You can insert some steps between an entry point step and its destination by selecting the entry point step and pressing one of the button in the Insert steps group.

The entry point step is converted into an entry point branch. It starts with the entry point and ends with the automatically added Go to step. This Go to step cannot be deleted but it can be redirected to another step if necessary. You can delete the whole entry point branch just by deleting its first entry point step.

The step pointed by the entry point or entry point branch cannot be deleted anymore. If you deleted the Computer step in the example above the process diagram would fall apart into two disjoint branches thus it would be not a diagram of one process anymore. In order to delete the Computer step you have first either to redirect the end of the entry point branch to another step (e.g., Manual) or to delete this entry point branch at all.

You can create an entry point to a step in another entry point branch

Now, you cannot delete the Telephone step but neither you can delete the whole entry point branch containing Telephone.

You cannot insert an entry point inside a subprocess (phase, service) diagram. However, you can expand this subprocess on the top level diagram and create an entry point to one of steps in the expanded subprocess. Then you can collapse the subprocess again. Notice that there is a small Go to icon on top of the Telephone step inside the Subprocess diagram. It is used to mark the fact that there is an external reference to this step.

You can never create an entry point to a step inside a parallel branch.

You cannot create an entry point if a process already has parallel start branches.