Flow Type Definitions

A flow type defines how a connector line is drawn between nodes in a process diagram — its colour, thickness, style, arrowheads and label font. Together with process step types, flow types are what make a diagram readable at a glance.

The visual vocabulary matters more than it sounds. If a conditional branch and a normal sequence look identical, readers have to trace the logic instead of seeing it.

Fields

• Code / Name
  The flow type's identity.

• Border colour
  The line colour, as a hex value.

• Border size
  The line thickness.

• Border style
  Solid, dashed, dotted.

• Source arrow type / target arrow type
  The arrowheads at each end of the connector.

• BPMN flow category
  Which BPMN flow this type represents — sequence flow, message flow, association, and so on.

• Font settings
  How the connector's label is drawn.

• Width / height
  Optional dimension overrides.

• Default flow
  Marks this as the default connector type.

The default flow

Exactly one flow type is the default per tenant. The system enforces this:

caution

The default flow type cannot be deleted, and it cannot be directly demoted. To change which type is the default, promote a different type — the previous default is stepped down automatically.

This guarantees that drawing a connector always has a valid style to fall back on.

A typical set

Flow type	Style	Used for
Sequence	Solid, plain arrow	The normal path from one step to the next.
Conditional	Solid, diamond source	A branch taken only when a condition holds.
Default branch	Solid with a slash marker	The branch taken when no condition matches.
Message	Dashed, open arrow	Communication crossing a participant boundary.
Association	Dotted, no arrow	Linking an annotation or artefact to a node.

Authorization and Access Control

Creating and editing flow types is restricted by role-based permissions. The list is normally configured once during implementation and rarely changed afterwards — a change reshapes every existing diagram that uses that type.

tip

Set the visual conventions before anybody draws real processes. Restyling a flow type later silently changes the appearance of every diagram in the system, and diagrams people have already read and approved.