Create process flows

A process flow (formerly known as a value stream) consists of steps that are used to provide a continuous flow of value through the agile process. Process flows represent your own process steps based on your organization’s terminology.

Process Flow is a customizable term inside of Platform Terminology settings.

The Process Flow menu only appears if it is turned on by your administrator.

Create process flows on the process flows page:

1. Select Portfolio or Solution in the top navigation bar and select the portfolio or solution you want to create a process flow for.
2. On the sidebar, select More items in the list of options.
3. Select Process flows; the process flows page displays.

To create a process flow:

1. On the process flows page, select the Add Process Flow button on the toolbar (top-right of the page).
2. Enter the process flow's name.
3. From the Level drop-down menu, select the theme, epic, capability, feature, or story level.
4. In the Team Description box, type the solution team’s description. A process flow team is created at the same time the process flow is created.
5. Select a region.
6. From the Team Owner drop-down menu, select the solution team’s owner.
7. Select one or multiple programs with which the process flow is associated. Adding a program to a flow will show a new list of process steps under epics, capabilities, etc. New process steps may not match the previously saved process steps. At the same time, if you remove a program, all epics, capabilities, etc. associated with it will no longer contain process steps defined for this program.
8. For the Active option, select whether this is an active working process flow that is available for use.
9. For the Map to State option, turn it on if you want to map the process steps to the item states. Turning off this setting removes the step association with states.
   1. Type a new step for the process flow, select the state which you want to map the process step to, and then click Add.
   2. Under Assign process steps to states, select the states for the existing process steps from the corresponding drop-down menus. All process steps must be mapped to states. You can assign multiple states to the same step.
   3. Click Save.
10. Click Save. Next, you need to add process steps to your process flow. You can add process steps to your value stream to completely customize the workflow for themes, epics, capabilities, features, and stories.
11. Open the Process Steps tab that appears.
12. In the Quick Add Process Step box, type the steps for the process flow, select the state if applicable, and then click Add. For details on how to manage process steps, see the Process step options section below.
13. Open the Members tab.
14. Under Team Members, select the necessary team members to add to your team. Under Team Roles, select the role of each team member on the team.
15. Click Save & Close.

Note: If you have any Jira projects set up, you can click View Jira Mappings to view different state mappings from Jira and Jira Align. This helps in validating the states. The mappings are set under Settings > Connectors > Jira Settings > Manage Projects > Manage Custom Fields.

Process step options

The following options are configurable in the Process Steps tab for each process step:

1. For epics and capabilities, select a functional area mapping from the dropdown menu to enable a status roll up of functional features to process flow steps.
   Note: After the step has been created, you can update the mapping through the pencil icon.
2. To estimate the process step time, type the number of hours in the box.
   Note: You can also set this by clicking the pencil icon and filling out the Efficiency (in Hours) field.
3. To edit the process step details, click the pencil icon. Fields unique to the process step Details panel include:
   • Exit criteria: Exit criteria are used to define an epic intake process with exit criteria to drive governance through the project, to create a policy for when to complete specific fields in the work item (epic), or if your team has specific requirements that it needs to meet before moving a card to another place. Type the criteria name, and then click the plus sign to add the criteria. Be attentive as you cannot edit exit criteria. These criteria appear in the Kanban > Process Flow View of the backlog.
   • WIP limits: WIP limits can be used to warn users when too many features are in progress at once on the Kanban > Process Flow View of the feature backlog. WIP limits can be applied for each program using the process flow. This section only displays for feature process steps.
4. To switch off the email notifications about the changes to this process step, click the envelope icon.
   Note: You can also set this by clicking the pencil icon and switching the Send Email toggle on or off.
5. To delete a step, click the trash icon.
6. To open the responsibility assignment matrix, click the grid icon.

You may drag-and-drop the steps in the panel to control the order in which they display inside of work item Details panel field dropdowns, and from the Kanban > Process Flow view of backlog pages. 

Note: If your steps are mapped to states, drag-and-drop will only change the order when compared to other steps mapped to the same state. For example, a step mapped to the In Progress state will always display before a step mapped to the Accepted state, even when the step mapped to Accepted is dragged to the top of the panel.