Reading a process diagram

Objects in this vault can carry a process diagram, shown on a tab beside the metadata card. The diagram comes from Elements.cloud, where the organisation’s processes are mapped, and it is drawn live rather than as a picture — so it is always the version the vault is set to show.

Opening it

Select an object and choose the process viewer tab. Which tab it is depends on how your vault is set up; it sits among the standard tabs rather than replacing one.

If the tab is empty, the object is not one that has been linked to a diagram. Not every class is.

What is on the diagram

Activity boxes are the steps in the process. Selecting one shows what is attached to it — the documents that govern it, the resources it uses, and the roles responsible for it.

Traffic lights beside a box are a score, worked out from a data table attached to that activity. What is being scored depends on what your organisation has configured; a box with no light has no table of that kind attached, which is not a problem.

Coloured flags on a box mean the activity maps to a standard or framework your organisation tracks. Only the standards your vault has been set up to show are flagged, so an activity with no flag may still be mapped to others.

Moving around

The diagram opens centred on whatever is relevant to the object you selected. Where that object is an activity, the viewer centres on that activity and marks it, so you can see it in the context of the process around it.

Depending on how your vault is configured, you may be able to switch between releases — the published versions of a process — using the release selector. Different user groups can be given different features here, so what you see may not be what a colleague sees.

Creating objects from the viewer

Some vaults let you create an M-Files object directly from the viewer, using a form configured for the purpose — raising an issue against an activity, for example, without leaving the diagram. The object is created as you, with your permissions.

Diagram numbers can differ from the numbers on objects

A diagram may show a number that does not match the one stored on the M-Files object it came from. Neither is wrong: reorganising processes in Elements.cloud renumbers diagrams while leaving their names unchanged, so a viewer showing the current state can be ahead of the release the objects were created from. Go by the name rather than the number, or ask which version your vault shows.

If the diagram does not load

The viewer needs to reach Elements.cloud, so an empty diagram where there should be one is usually a connection problem rather than something you have done. Report it with the object you were looking at; that is what an administrator needs to find the mapping.