Process Element Documentation

This feature is available exclusively in the Flowset Control Enterprise edition.

Flowset Control can display documentation for individual BPMN elements directly on the process diagram. When a process developer adds a Documentation entry to an element in the BPMN XML, that text becomes accessible to operators and analysts in Flowset Control — without having to open the source model.

This makes it easy to understand the purpose of a task, gateway, or event right in context, while monitoring or analyzing a running process.

The feature is available on the following pages:

Viewing Element Documentation

Elements that have documentation attached are indicated by a question mark icon (?) displayed on the element in the BPMN diagram.

process documentation 1
process documentation 2

To view the documentation for an element:

  1. Navigate to Processes or Process Instances.

  2. Select the desired process and open its diagram.

  3. Click the ? icon on any BPMN element that has documentation attached.

  4. The Element documentation dialog will open.

    process documentation 3

The dialog displays:

  • Type — the BPMN element type (e.g., bpmn:UserTask, bpmn:ServiceTask).

  • Id — the unique identifier of the element as defined in the BPMN XML.

  • Documentation text — the description written by the process developer.

Documentation in BPMN XML

Element documentation is defined in the BPMN source using the standard <documentation> tag inside any flow element:

<bpmn:userTask id="approveInvoice" name="Approve Invoice">
  <bpmn:documentation>Approve the invoice (or not).</bpmn:documentation>
  ...
</bpmn:userTask>

Flowset Control reads this value automatically when the process is deployed — no additional configuration is required.

Documentation can be added to any BPMN element that supports it: tasks, gateways, events, sub-processes, and sequence flows.