- 9 minutes to read

What is the BPM Designer?

The visual process modeling tool that replaces Visio, draw.io, and static diagrams

The BPM Designer is Nodinite's powerful visual editor for creating swimlane-based business process models. Unlike traditional diagramming tools (Visio, draw.io, Lucidchart), the BPM Designer creates living documentation that automatically updates with real execution data and connects directly to monitoring and logging systems.

Why Choose BPM Designer Over Traditional Tools?

Traditional process diagramming tools create static, disconnected documentation that drifts from reality:

  • Visio/draw.io diagrams - Beautiful but obsolete within weeks, no connection to live systems
  • Manual updates required - Process changes require tedious diagram redrawing
  • No operational insight - Can't see which steps are failing or where transactions are stuck

BPM Designer eliminates these problems with living, actionable process models:

  • Automatically reflects reality - Process health updates in real-time as events are logged
  • No manual diagram updates - Connect services once, never redraw when implementations change
  • Instant operational insight - Color-coded steps show success/warning/error status at a glance
  • Single source of truth - Repository-based and accessible to all stakeholders
  • Click-through troubleshooting - Click any step to view log events and drill into details
  • One model, many views - Show the same BPM as an interactive Mapify graph or a Mermaid diagram

How the BPM Designer Works

The BPM Designer provides an intuitive table-like interface with swimlanes. Open it from the Design tab when you add or edit a BPM, or with Open Designer in the BPM Overview actions menu.

Structure

  • Rows (Swimlanes): Represent Domains, grouping related services and responsibilities horizontally (e.g., "Sales", "Finance", "IT", "Warehouse")
  • Columns: Represent steps or milestones in the business process (e.g., "Order Entry", "Payment Processing", "Fulfillment")
  • Cells: Add one or more Services or sub-processes to each cell, tie Services to Resources for monitoring, and display their current state and available Remote Actions—directly in the designer. These are the same Services as in the Integration Landscape, so a change to a Service shows in both

BPM Designer with the Design tab, toolbox, and the View, Mapify, Mermaid, Add BPM, Duplicate, and Save buttons (7.11)

BPM Designer with swimlanes (Domains), steps with Services connected by labeled connectors, and a sub-process in Step 7.

Toolbox

The toolbox on the left of the Design tab holds everything you place on the diagram:

  • Canvas tools - Zoom out, zoom in, fit to screen, select, pan, undo, and redo
  • Services - Drag a service icon onto a cell to add a Service; the icon sets the direction filter (for example Receive, Send, or Request/Response)
  • Process - Drag the process icon onto a cell to add a sub-process (another BPM); see Hierarchical BPMs
  • Connectors - Draw the flow between nodes with straight or elbow lines, solid or dashed, with or without an arrow

Toolbar

The buttons at the top right act on the whole BPM:

  • View - Open the BPM in read-only mode
  • Mapify - Open the BPM in Mapify Rendering, an interactive graph of everything the BPM relates to (requires a Mapify license)
  • Mermaid - Open the BPM in Mermaid Rendering, a static diagram you can print, export, or copy as Mermaid source (included with Repository)
  • Add BPM - Start a new BPM
  • Duplicate - Create a copy of this BPM
  • Save - Save your changes

Key Features

1. Drag-and-Drop Process Steps

Create process columns by:

  • Adding new columns for process milestones
  • Naming columns with business-friendly labels (e.g., "Order Entry", "Ready for Transport")
  • Re-arranging columns with drag and drop
  • Deleting columns when process flows change

2. Domain-Based Swimlanes

Organize services by ownership using Domains:

  • Add domain rows (e.g., "Sales", "Finance", "IT")
  • Assign domains to rows to show accountability
  • Re-arrange domain rows with drag and drop
  • Reuse domains across multiple BPMs for consistency

3. Service Assignment

Populate cells with Services:

  • Drag service icons from the Services section of the toolbox into cells, then pick the Service
  • Add multiple services per cell when steps execute in parallel
  • Rename the shape for clarity without changing the repository name (Artifact Renaming)
  • Remove services when no longer part of the process

4. New 7.3 Sub-Process Nesting

Starting with Nodinite 7.3.0:

  • Add sub-processes (other BPMs) to cells alongside services, by dragging the icon from the Process section of the toolbox
  • Nest as deep as you need - sub-processes can have sub-processes, with no fixed depth limit
  • Enable progressive drill-down in Log Views for troubleshooting
  • Reuse common sub-processes across multiple master processes

Learn more about Hierarchical BPMs →

5. Real-Time Visual Process Health

  • In the BPM Designer, no log data is applied, so each Service shape takes the worst monitoring state of its linked Resources (see Integrated Monitoring).
  • When you open the BPM from a Log View, for example from a grouped Log View or when you search log events from a BPM, each shape takes the Log Status Code of that transaction's events, and the lightbulb shows the Resource state separately:
    • Success (Green) - Step completed successfully
    • Warning (Yellow) - Step completed with warnings
    • Error (Red) - Step failed, requires attention
    • Information (Blue) - Informational events
    • None (Gray) - No events logged yet

No configuration required - colors update automatically as events are logged and Resources change state.

6. Integrated Monitoring

View service health directly in the designer:

  • A lightbulb next to each Service shows the worst state across its linked Resources, and in the Designer the whole Service shape takes that color; click the lightbulb for the Resource details
  • See current operational status of each Resource
  • Open the Knowledge Base Articles with operator instructions attached to each linked Resource
  • Trigger the Remote Actions the linked Resources provide without leaving the designer
  • Monitor resource availability in real-time
  • Identify bottlenecks and failing services at a glance

Learn more about Integrated Monitoring →

7. New 7.10 View the BPM in Mapify or Mermaid

A BPM is part of the Repository Model, so it relates to Domains, Services, Systems, and sub-processes. Click Mapify or Mermaid in the toolbar to see those relations for this BPM, without leaving the designer:

  • Mapify Rendering - Explore the relations in an interactive, physics-based graph; drag nodes, pan, and zoom
  • Mermaid Rendering - Read the same relations as a static diagram, switch between diagram types such as Flowchart or Impact View, and export to SVG, PNG, or Mermaid source for wikis and documentation

Both views show the current relations of the BPM from the same backend; they don't change the BPM.

Creating a BPM in the Designer

  1. Open the BPM Designer
    • Navigate to Repository > BPMs > Overview
    • Click "Add BPM" or edit an existing BPM
    • Open the Design tab
  2. Define your domains (if not already created)
    • Add rows for organizational units (Sales, Finance, IT, Warehouse)
    • Assign Domains to rows for ownership tracking
  3. Create process steps
    • Add columns for business milestones (Order Entry, Payment, Fulfillment)
    • Name columns clearly for business stakeholders
  4. Populate cells
    • Drag Services from the Services section of the toolbox into appropriate cells
    • Add sub-processes for complex steps from the Process section (7.3.0+)
    • Assign multiple services per cell when operations run in parallel
  5. Connect the flow
    • Use the Connectors to draw the flow between services and sub-processes, and label each connector with the milestone it represents
  6. Configure monitoring
  7. Save and activate

Tip

The BPM Designer has no locking, and editing the same BPM at the same time is not supported. Agree on who edits a BPM, and avoid having it open for editing in two places at once.

Complete step-by-step guide →

Artifact Renaming

Tailor service names for clarity without changing the repository

In enterprise environments, technical service names may not be business-friendly:

  • Repository: INT1337-SND-Confirm-Outgoing
  • BPM Display: Confirmation Sent

The BPM Designer supports Artifact Renaming:

  • Rename the shape in the cell to a business-friendly name
  • Original repository name remains unchanged
  • Display name appears only in this BPM

This enables you to create business-stakeholder-friendly diagrams without breaking technical naming conventions.

BPM Designer vs. Traditional Tools

Capability Visio / draw.io BPM Designer
Visual process diagrams Yes Yes
Swimlane support Yes Yes
Connected to live systems No Yes - real-time data
Auto-update with execution No Yes - automatic colors
Troubleshoot from diagram No Yes - click to view logs
Monitor service health No Yes - integrated monitoring
Trigger remote actions No Yes - the Remote Actions of the linked Resources
Find a transaction by business value No Yes - Search Fields (e.g. Order Number)
Compliance audit trails No Yes - full event history
Hierarchical sub-processes Manual nesting Yes - no fixed depth limit (7.3.0+)
Relationship graph and diagram export No Yes - Mapify and Mermaid (7.10)

Best Practices

Design for Your Audience

Business Stakeholders

  • Use business-friendly column names ("Customer Onboarding" not "CRM.CreateAccount")
  • Leverage Artifact Renaming to hide technical service names
  • Limit BPMs to 5-7 columns for simplicity
  • Use hierarchical BPMs to hide complexity
  • Share a Mermaid Rendering export of the BPM in wikis and presentations

Technical Teams

  • Include all technical services for complete troubleshooting visibility
  • Use descriptive domain names matching organizational structure
  • Link services to Resources for integrated monitoring
  • Configure Search Field Expressions so users can find a transaction by a business value such as Order Number
  • Use Mapify Rendering to check what a change to the BPM touches before you make it

Organize Services Logically

  • Group parallel operations in same cell - Multiple payment gateway calls
  • Separate sequential steps into columns - Validate → Process → Confirm
  • Assign services to correct domains - Finance owns payment processing, not IT

Leverage Living Documentation

  • Process changes automatically reflected - Update Services in repository, BPM updates
  • Visual health assessment - Glance at BPM to see which steps are failing
  • Operational dashboards - Share BPM views with business stakeholders for status updates

Next Steps

Add or manage BPM – Step-by-step guide to creating your first BPM
Domains – Define organizational swimlanes for process ownership
End-to-End Process Tracking – Connect BPMs to milestone-based logging
Integrated Monitoring – Monitor service health directly from BPM Designer

Business Process Model (BPM) – Complete BPM overview
Services – Integration services that execute process steps
Resources – Monitor service health and availability
Hierarchical BPMs – Nest sub-processes for complex enterprise workflows
Mapify Rendering – Interactive relationship graph for any Repository entity
Mermaid Rendering – Static relationship diagrams with export