Process Diagram Validation

Validate a process to check it is correctly defined

Validate a process to ensure that it is structurally complete, consistent and correctly defined

Flowset provides a configuration tool which enables Zendesk admin users to define the processes that are enacted on tickets.  Processes are configured by drawing process diagrams and setting properties against the various shapes to define their behaviour.  When you attempt to save a process definition, the configured diagram is validated to ensure that it is structurally complete and consistent.  Any validation errors will be highlighted and the agent can then find and fix these problems.

Validating a process diagram

A process diagram is validated when it is saved or when you explicitly click the validate button on the toolbar.  The diagram is saved when you click the save button, it may be auto saved periodically and is also saved when you navigate up or down the structure of a process decomposition.

Validation

You can click the validate button at any time to check if your process is valid.  A dialog will be displayed which will show if your process design is valid or has errors.

If the validation of a process finds errors, any shapes on the diagram which have errors will be highlighted in red and an additional button will be displayed on the toolbar which will indicate how many errors have been found.  Click the button to see details of the errors.

Show Errors

Click the Show Errors button to see a list of the errors discovered by the process validation.  A dialog is displayed showing the shape in error and details of any error(s) that apply to it.  If your process involves decomposition or split activities, it may be that errors exist on sub diagrams that are not visible from the currently rendered diagram.  Clicking on the details of the error will switch the currently rendered diagram to the one showing the error and indicate the shape with the error (the red border will flash).

Saving a process

When you save a process, it is automatically validated.  If any validation errors are found, the Show Errors button will be displayed and any shapes in error will be highlighted in red.  The process definition will be saved even if it has validation errors, but these errors will  need to be rectified before the process can be published.  The process diagram editor automatically saves your diagram periodically (an auto save) and if you are, for example, in the middle of making some changes which are incomplete, you may see errors being reported.  As you continue to edit the diagram and fix problems, the process definition will automatically revalidate and errors will be removed.

Types of error

The types of error that the process validation will check for are

• Each diagram should have a start and a stop
• A start must link to another shape
• A stop must be linked from another shape
• Activities should be linked from and to other shapes
• Join gateways should link to at least one activity
• Split activities must be linked from a join gateway

Metadata validation

This article describes how the structural consistency of a process definition is checked and reported.  It is possible while editing a process definition to introduce such errors.  In addition to structural errors, the validation also checks for metadata errors.  This is when properties of shapes (e.g. an activity start condition) refer to Zendesk meta data (e.g. ticket fields & their values, groups, ticket forms etc.) which may be changed.  For example, if you define an activity start condition when the custom field 'Product Type' is set to tractor and then the value tractor is removed from the custom field definition.  This condition will not be able to evaluate properly.  Metadata validation is described more fully here Workflow Configuration Validation