What is a process
A process is a set of related activities, along with supporting
information such as data and content. The activities can be part of
a structured flow, or ad-hoc activities that are not part of a structured
flow.
The following diagram illustrates the main process artifacts and how they relate to one another.

- Start event
- Use to model the start of a process, a linked process, a subprocess, or an event subprocess. A Start event is automatically included when you create a process. You can include multiple Start events so that you can start the process more than one way. For more information, see Event types.
- Activities
- An activity represents work to be done during the running of the process. For more information, see Implementing activities in a process.
- Gateways
- Represents a split or convergence of multiple execution paths. For more information, see Converging and diverging flows.
- Lanes
- A container for the activities and events in a process. A lane usually groups activities that are completed by members of a team.
- Teams
- You can assign a team whose members can start a process, or an instance owners team whose members can work with the process at run time. For more information, see Assigning teams to a process.
- Subprocesses
- A subprocess represents a collection of logically related steps contained within a parent process. For more information, see Modeling subprocesses.
- Content
- Your process might need documents that are stored in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) folders. You can specify the folder that you use to manage these ECM documents.
- User interfaces
- Create user interfaces that a user sees while working with the process in Workplace. For more information, see Creating user interfaces for processes.
- Services
- Services provide functions for a process. You can discover and use external services, such as REST services, web services, or Java services in your process. For more information, see Service types.
- Events
- Events in a process can be triggered by a due date passing, an exception, or an incoming message from an external system. You can add events that can occur at the beginning, during, or at the end of a process. Use events to track data, manage errors, and retrieve information about the execution of your processes. For more information, see Modeling events.
- Ad hoc activities
- An ad hoc activity is not part of the structured process; it is an activity that a business user can run as needed. An ad hoc activity has no input wires and is started according to predefined preconditions, rather than by a predefined process flow. Such activities can be required or optional, and they can be defined as repeatable or to run at most once. For more information, see Creating an unstructured (ad hoc) activity.