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Diagram templates

Every new diagram starts from a template — one of the built-in iGrafx Templates (BPMNBPMN An ISO/OMG standard graphical notation for modeling business processes. Process360 Live uses BPMN 2.0 for design and simulation artifacts., Generic, Journey Map, Navigation, ArchiMate, Value Stream Map) or one of your own. Offer a starting point with your company's pools, styles, and standard shapes already in place.

Prerequisites​

  • The template folder and the visibility of built-in templates are repository settings on the Advanced page — the Manage Repository Configuration permission is needed to change them; see Advanced repository settings.

Steps​

Make a diagram a template​

  1. Build the diagram you want others to start from and check it in.
  2. Get it approved — only diagrams with an approved version appear as templates; see Review and approve a process.
  3. Place it in (or under) the repository's template folder. A repository administrator sets that folder in the Template Folder setting — see Diagrams in the advanced repository settings.

The diagram now appears in the Template picker of the Add Object dialog, under its own name; the template folder's subfolder structure is preserved in the list, and your templates appear before the built-in ones.

Control the built-in templates​

A repository administrator can show or hide each built-in template in the iGrafx Templates setting — see Diagrams in the advanced repository settings. If no template folder is set and all iGrafx templates are hidden, diagram creation is disabled — the dialog tells users that "templates can be enabled by an administrator in Repository > Advanced."

Use a template​

In Add Object → Diagram → Diagram View, pick the template in the Template dropdown. The new diagram starts as a copy of the template's content, and its history records which template it was created from.

What a template includes​

A template is an ordinary approved diagram, so it can carry anything a diagram can. Creating from it in Diagram View copies all of it:

  • the shape libraries the diagram offers, including custom ones
  • pools, lanes, and shapes already placed, with their Shape textShape text The text displayed on a diagram shape. Type while a shape is selected to add or edit it. Part of the shape feature family alongside Shape Links and Shape Properties.
  • Describes relationships already set on those shapes
  • header and footer configuration
  • styling — the diagram styles and per-element formatting
  • diagram page setup and diagram type

QuickMap and Pia use the same templates, but only their setup — not their shapes. Starting a QuickMap or a Pia diagram from a template carries over the styling, headers and footers, page setup, diagram type, and available shape libraries, but leaves out the placed pools, shapes, and Describes relationships — QuickMap and Pia build the shapes themselves. The shapes they build now pick up the styling of matching shapes in the template's custom shape library, so a generated diagram looks like your standard shapes.

Limitations​

  • The template list shows up to 100 templates.