Getting Started with InstantProcess

InstantProcess is a visual and declarative way to draw and describe any process. This guide helps you take your first steps: from understanding what InstantProcess does to creating your first process graph. InstantProcess can also be used to generate BPMN business processes, but its core model is a flexible graph of activities and events that you design. It is a tool that helps you capture and communicate how work should flow; any analysis, exploration, or evolution of those processes is driven by how you use the diagrams and graphs it lets you create.

What this page covers

• What InstantProcess is and what it generates
• Key concepts of the InstantProcess process graph
• Your first process graph

InstantProcess at a glance

InstantProcess lets you define and generate processes of any kind as graphs. You are not limited to a specific notation or domain: customer journeys, support flows, internal checklists, technical runbooks, onboarding paths, or classic business processes can all be drawn.

Instead of thinking in terms of a single, linear flow, you describe:

• Activities: things that need to happen
• Events: when and why something happens
• Decisions: where choices, branching, or routing occur
• Connections: how everything is linked together
• Swimming lanes: groups or perspectives that isolate paths

Using these building blocks, you draw a process graph that makes the structure of whatever you are modeling explicit and easier to discuss. InstantProcess is not limited to BPMN-style business processes. You can use the same tool to sketch any process or workflow you care about, while still keeping full control over how you interpret and use the graphs you create.

In short

When you create your first project in InstantProcess, you are greeted with a small starter example:

    LANE User
    START 'Start' NEXT
    EVENT 'Task 1' NEXT

    GATEWAY 'Choice' NEXT 'Task 2' 'Option 1' AND 'End' 'Option 2'
    
    EVENT 'Task 2' NEXT
    END 'End'

This snippet shows the essential pieces of the language:

• START, EVENT, GATEWAY, and END are node types. It declares what you want to draw.
• Each node is followed by a label like 'Start', 'Task 1', or 'Choice' that identifies and describes it. It declares which process you want to describe.
• The NEXT keyword indicates a connection from one node to the next. It declares where next to.
• In the GATEWAY 'Choice' line, explicit NEXT targets are supplied.

On the right side of the editor, InstantProcess renders the generated graph for this definition, so you can immediately see how the note you write turns into nodes and edges.

From here, you can rename labels, add or remove nodes, or change the options in the gateway to match the process you have in mind. The core pattern stays the same: choose a node type, give it a label, and use NEXT to express how the flow should continue.

Next steps

• Create your first real process graph: follow a step-by-step guide in Your First Process Graph to model an actual process you care about, using the starter graph as a foundation.
• Dive into the language reference: explore the full documentation of the language elements in the Language Reference, which lives in its own section and sidebar.
• Explore other functionality: if you are interested in exports, sharing, or other capabilities, visit Features & Integrations to see what else you can do with the graphs you create.