Way We Do's Instant Flowcharts feature allows you to visualize your Activated Checklist as a flowchart at the click of a button.

There's a few reasons why you may like to use this feature:

Please note: this is an optional feature. To switch it on in your account, please let us know via support@waywedo.com or use the chat feature in the bottom right of your Way We Do browser window.

Once this feature is switched on in your account, you won't need to do anything to create the flowcharts for any existing or future Activated Checklists. The functionality is designed to instantly generate the flowchart when you select the flowcharts tab.

Flowcharts can be viewed on an Activated Checklist that is in a Draft, Pending Review, and Published status. When editing an already published checklist, the Draft and / or Pending Review flowchart will reflect the changes made, then when re-published, the Publish status version will update instantly to reflect the changes.

To view the flowchart on a checklist:

The Instant Flowchart is visualizing the steps within your Activated Checklist. The different step types are displayed in different ways.

A note on Event Steps: The Event step will not display in an Instant Flowchart. This is because within the checklist, the Event works as 'point-in-time' to work towards and is not a step that requires completion.

To see the content of the step from the Activated Checklist, you can select the eye icon.

This will show you what content has been added to the step, including any media or links. The content will display in a pop-up which you can close down when you're finished viewing.

The steps on the Instant Flowchart are connected via lines. These lines are either solid or dotted, which is based on how the connection is made. A dependency between steps creates a solid line, and steps revealed by completing a Decision Point create a dotted line (more on this below in the section called How to ensure an Instant Flowchart generates correctly).

To make it easier to follow where a line goes, you can hover your mouse over it, which will highlight the line red.

A swimlane diagram is a type of flowchart that separates which role completes which activity within a process.

To achieve this with your Way We Do Instant Flowcharts, you will need to assign responsible roles to a step within the process. By doing this, Way We Do can create 'lanes' for the steps in the process to be displayed within.

If you have steps within the process that don't have a specific role responsible for them, they'll be placed in a 'lane' entitled Any Role.

The below screenshot shows you a flowchart with swimlanes based on a process that has steps that anyone can complete and steps a manager can complete.

This support article provides instructions on assigning roles to steps.

Instant Flowcharts are created by transferring the steps from an Activated Checklist into the flowchart.

To create the 'flow' between the individual steps, it uses Dependencies and Revealed Steps from Decision Points. Having these within the checklist will create the links required between the steps to appear as a flowchart.

A dependency in an Activated Checklist is a means to ensure that a certain step isn't completed prior to another step - it becomes Dependent on the completion of a preceding step.

When you add a dependency between steps, you're creating the connecting line between those steps when visualized on the flowchart. Therefore, it's important to consider this as you build / edit your Activated Checklist.

Dependencies are shown on the Instant Flowchart as a solid arrow.

If there are steps in your checklist that do not have a dependency set up on them, the connecting line will not show and it will break the 'flow'. The below screenshot shows an example of this, where there is no connection between step 1 and step 2.

This support article provides instructions on creating dependencies on steps.

When you have a Decision Point in an Activated Checklist that reveals steps it creates the 'flow' for you, as the steps revealed are connected to the conditions within the Decision Point.

These connections are shown as a dotted line on the flowchart. The below screenshot shows you the Decision Point "Has the candidate accepted?", the two conditions "Yes" or "No", then the steps that are revealed based on the selection of a condition - note the dotted line from the condition to the step.

If the steps being revealed from a Decision Point should present in a specific order, it's best to create dependencies on these to ensure the correct 'flow'.

For example, in the below process, steps 10, 11, 12, and 13 should 'flow' in that order after the "No" condition is selected on step 9. So, to ensure they present this way, you'll need to add the dependencies between them.

If you did not do this, then the steps revealed wouldn't show a relationship between them (see the below screenshot). They're still connected via the dotted line, because they're related to the Decision Point, but it no longer appears to 'flow'.

When you have dependencies on steps revealed by a Decision Point, the default view is to show the dependency line (solid line) instead of the condition line (dotted line). If you'd like to see both the dependency and condition lines, select Show all condition lines to change this view.

This will then display the dotted lines and the solid lines.