Edit a flowchart
Last updated
Last updated
Edit a flowchart — including automatically generated flowcharts — at any time. This article provides an example of creating and editing a flowchart from the start.
If you edit and save changes to an existing flowchart, any generated content such as Acceptance Criteria and Test Scripts are not automatically updated.
Re-generate that content after making and saving and changes to a flowchart.
There are two ways to edit a flowchart:
Using a mouse and keyboard, with precision selections, connections, and drag-and-drop; and
Using on-screen toolbars and controls.
On-screen toolbars and controls make it possible to edit a flowchart on a touchscreen device and with lower-precision pointing (i.e. finger control).
Both options are described below.
In a new flowchart, click the provided Start step. It will highlight in blue, and reveal its toolbar:
Click the Add next button on the toolbar to reveal options for outgoing connections from the Start step. You'll see one (1) option under Connect to a new step: Action
Select Action — this will create a connection to a new Action step from the Start step:
If you select the Start step again, and click the Add next button on its toolbar, you'll notice it's now tracking the new, outgoing connection:
You can create multiple outgoing connections and Action steps from a Start step, if required.
In general this isn't good practice, and may lead to poor quality results in automatically generated documentation.
If your feature's logic starts with a decision, it is better to create a single Action following the Start step, using that Action a decision step. Give it a clear label for the decision/question, and add multiple possible outgoing connections.
See About decision steps in Flowchart capabilities and requirements
Click an Action step to reveal its toolbar:
Click the Edit (pencil) button on the toolbar. The edit popup appears, allowing you to change the step's label, and add any free text Notes:
Click the green checkmark button to save the changes. In this example, Notes were added and the Action step now displays a note icon:
To quickly edit an Action step's label, double-click the step, update the text, and then click anywhere else to close the edit box
Add new Action and End steps in the same way as above: click an existing Action step to reveal its toolbar, select the Add new button on the toolbar, and choose either Action or End under Connect to a new step:
To move a step to a different area — for example, to make space when adding new steps — click the step, and drag it to a new location in the flowchart area.
To move a group of steps at once, hold down the SHIFT key, click and drag to select multiple steps, release the SHIFT key, and drag the selected steps to a new position.
You can remove Action and End steps. You cannot remove a flowchart's Start step. Click the step, and click the Remove button on its toolbar:
If you removed a step that has outgoing connections, all outgoing connections from that step are also removed.
You can quickly remove steps with a mouse by clicking on the step to select it, and then pressing the DEL key (on macOS) or BACKSPACE key (on Windows).
To quickly remove multiple steps, use a mouse and keyboard.
Hold down the SHIFT key
Click and drag to select multiple steps
Press the DEL key (on macOS) or BACKSPACE key (on Windows)
To create a connection between two steps that are not currently connected, for example if you want to represent a decision with different outgoing connections from a step, there are two methods:
Click the circular connection point on the bottom of the source step, and drag to create a new connection to the rectangular connection point on the top of the target step. This video clip demonstrates how:
Click the source step to reveal its toolbar and click the Add new button. On the menu, select the target step on the Connect to existing step section:
To label a connection, click the step that the connection starts at and click the Add new button on its toolbar. Existing Outgoing connections from that step are displayed (in this example, there is one outgoing connection with no label).
Click the Edit connection label button for that connection. Edit the label in the text box:
Click the green checkmark button when done to save the connection label:
To delete a connection, click the step that the connection starts at and click the Add new button on its toolbar. Existing Outgoing connections from that step are displayed:
Click the red Remove connection button next to the connection, and the connection is removed:
You can quickly delete connections with a mouse by clicking on the connection to select it, and then pressing the DEL key (on macOS) or BACKSPACE key (on Windows).
