Application design

The ideal process flow is how the streamlined process works when everything goes right. In the ideal process flow,  Ren's supervisor Gab approves a project that he submits.

An action that happens outside of the ideal process flow is an exception. For example, Gab might reject a project that Ren submits. The rejection is an exception because it is outside of the ideal process flow.

The ideal process flow is defined in terms of steps.

Ren identifies the following steps as his ideal process flow for a request to create new content: 

1. An employee of ABCTech, the requester, submits a request to the Creative Content team.
2. The requester receives an email confirmation. 
3. The relevant Creative Content team member receives the request:
   • Eli for video.
   • Ana for brochures.
   • Ren for slide decks.
4. The assigned team member completes the work. 
5. Gab reviews and approves the work.  
6. The requester reviews and approves the work. 

The steps of Ren's ideal process flow are visualized in the following figure:

In Pega Platform™ applications, steps are organized into stages. Stages indicate a major milestone in a business process or a significant change in the status of the process. An easy way to determine if the process enters a new stage is to imagine at which steps you would want to update your users.

After Ren determines the steps in his ideal process flow, he decides at which step there is a significant change in status. 

For example, when a request is in process, Ren wants the requester to know that the project is in the Processing stage. 

When Gab, the supervisor, reviews the project, Ren wants the requester to know that the project is in the Verification stage.  

Ren visualizes the stages and their related steps, as shown in the following figure: 

Is there a process that your team repeats daily or weekly? Take some time and map out the steps and stages in your ideal process flow.