Manage diagrams

Create, find, open, save, and delete BPMN diagrams from the Bonita Process Designer home dashboard.

This page covers the day-to-day lifecycle of a diagram: creating one, finding it again on the home dashboard, opening it in the editor, relying on autosave, and removing it when it is no longer needed. To learn how to draw and connect elements once a diagram is open, see Edit a diagram.

Who can do what

What you can do with diagrams depends on your role and on the groups you belong to:

Reader — view diagrams (in read-only mode) and read or add comments. Readers cannot create, edit, or delete diagrams.
Creator — create diagrams in the groups they belong to, and edit or delete any diagram in those groups.
Admin — full access to every diagram across all groups.

Diagrams are scoped to groups: you only see and act on diagrams in the groups you belong to. Admins see all diagrams. For the full rights matrix, see Roles and permissions.

Create a diagram

Creators and Admins can create a new diagram from the home dashboard.

Select New diagram.
Enter a description of the process you want to model. The description is required — it is also the prompt used if you choose to generate the diagram with AI.
Optionally enter a title. If you leave the title empty, Bonita Process Designer generates one from the first words of your description.
Confirm to create the diagram and open it in the editor.

A new diagram starts empty. When you first open it, you can choose to start from scratch and build it yourself, or generate it with AI from your description. See Create your first diagram to follow the full walkthrough.

Titles must be unique

Every diagram title must be unique. If you try to create (or rename) a diagram with a title that is already in use, the operation is rejected with a conflict error and the diagram is not saved. Choose a different title and try again.

The home dashboard

The home dashboard lists the diagrams available to you as a grid of cards. Each card shows the diagram’s thumbnail (a preview of the canvas), its title, a short excerpt of the description, its labels, the creator, and the date it was last updated.

Search

Use the search box to filter the list by title or description. The list narrows as you type.

Filter by label

Use the label filter to show only diagrams that carry a given label:

All shows every diagram available to you.
Selecting a specific label shows only the diagrams tagged with it.
If your administrator has marked a label as featured, that label is used as the default filter when you open the dashboard.

Sort

Sort the list by:

Last updated — most recently edited first (the usual default).
Date created — newest or oldest first.
Title — alphabetical order.

Each sort can be applied in ascending or descending order.

Open a diagram

Select a diagram card to open it in the editor. Readers open the diagram in read-only mode; Creators and Admins open it in edit mode. The editor shows the full diagram on the canvas, the diagram information, and the comments sidebar.

When several people open the same diagram, they edit it together in real time — see Collaborate in real time.

Autosave and the save status

You do not need to save manually. While you edit, Bonita Process Designer autosaves your changes at a regular interval (configurable by an administrator; see Application settings). A save only happens when there are unsaved changes.

A save-status indicator shows the current state:

Saving — changes are being written.
Saved — all changes are persisted.
Error — the last save failed; check your connection and keep the page open until it recovers.

Each save also refreshes the diagram’s thumbnail so the dashboard preview stays current.

Renaming a diagram is subject to the same unique-title rule as creation — a save that would duplicate another diagram’s title is rejected.

Delete a diagram

Creators can delete any diagram in their groups; Admins can delete any diagram.

Open or locate the diagram you want to remove.
Select Delete and confirm.

Deleting a diagram also removes all of its comments. Deletion is permanent, so confirm that the diagram is no longer needed before you proceed. Readers cannot delete diagrams.