Adding a Global Creation Activity

To use a process, there has to be a way of creating a process instance that flows through it. One way to do this is with a global creation activity.

A global creation activity creates a process instance that then flows from the Begin activity. It is called a global activity because it does not run from within an instance. Rather, it is executed outside of, and independent from, any existing instances.

In the Expense Report process, we use just one global creation activity, which we name Create Expense Report.

To add the Create Expense Report global creation activity:

To the right of the process design editor, in the toolbox, expand Global Activities and select Global Creation (). When you do this, do not hold the mouse button. The mouse cursor goes into insertion mode in the process design editor.
Insert the global creation activity in the Employee swimlane, above the Begin activity (see the image below), by clicking on the insertion point. The Activity dialog appears.
In the Name field, enter Create Expense Report. Note that the Activity ID, above the name field, is automatically completed to CreateExpenseReport. This is the name that will be used in code by developers.
Click OK. The Create Expense Report activity is added to the process.
Move the Begin and End activities down, as needed, if spacing is a bit tight in the diagram.

After completing this task, your process design diagram should look like this:

Figure 1. Create Expense Report Global Creation Activity

Save your changes before proceeding to the next task.