Creating playbacks

You can create and save up to ten playbacks to cover different scenarios, such as happy paths and exception paths through your process.
To create a playback:
  1. From your process diagram, click Playback button to change to playback mode. The blue bubbles show playbacks that have already been defined.
  2. Click a white bubble and provide a name for this playback to distinguish it from other playback scenarios that follow alternative paths. Optionally, provide a description for the playback by hovering over the information icon and then clicking the edit icon in the tooltip.
  3. Specify a path through the process by selecting a set of connected elements.
    • You can start your path anywhere within the process.
    • Click the activity that you want the playback to start with, and then select all the activities in turn. Subsequent activities must be connected to the previous ones. For example, after you select a gateway, you can choose any activity that is attached to one of the outbound lines from the gateway.
    • Alternatively, click the activity that you want the playback to start with and then click the activity that you want it to end with. Blueworks Live will infer the playback path. If it's not the path you want, you can make some changes:
      • If the inferred playback path includes an activity you don't want, use Ctrl-click or Cmd-click on the activity to remove it from the path, as long as removing it doesn't result in an isolated activity.
      • If the path contains an exclusive gateway and you want to switch to a different branch, use Ctrl-click or Cmd-click on the gateway to switch branches.
      • If the path contains parallel branches and you don't want to include all of them, use Ctrl-click or Cmd-click on the last activity that you want to remove, then go backwards using Ctrl-click or Cmd-click to remove each activity in the branch.
      • If the path contains an expanded subprocess, you can clear the playback path inside the subprocess.
    • If the process contains an activity with a linked process, you can either enter the linked process to create a playback subflow or you can continue with the next element in the current process. To enter a linked process, hover over the activity to get a tooltip and then, from the tooltip, select the linked process to enter.
      • You can enter a linked process only if it has a process diagram associated with it (not just a discovery map).
      • When you finish creating a playback subflow, click the buttons at the bottom or the breadcrumb trail at the top to return to the previous process and continue selecting activities. The Parent button returns you to the parent playback path and the Top button returns you to the initial playback path if you are more than one level down.
    • To clear the activities you selected and start again, you can click Clear Path button Clear playback subflow. If you are in a playback subflow, only the path within the subflow and any subflows that are nested under it are cleared. From the parent playback, you can also hover over an activity with linked processes until you see the tooltip, and select Clear Path button Clear path to remove the playback subflow and any nested subflows.
  4. To exit playback mode, click Exit in the playback controls.

Playbacks are automatically saved with the process when you take a snapshot.

You can share playbacks with others by creating a link. Click Copy playback link to clipboard button Copy playback link to clipboard in the playback controls. To share playbacks offline, you can export a specific playback, or all playbacks for a process, to Microsoft Word.

Prefer to watch?

Watch this short video about creating process playbacks.

Read a transcript of this video.

For more videos, visit Big Blue Helps External link opens a new window or tab and go to the playlist "How to use IBM Blueworks Live."