The Process Accelerator is live and available for purchase to Enterprise-level accounts!
The Process Accelerator provides organizations with increased governance and standardization in how processes are documented, stored, and maintained.
New to the Process Accelerator? This post serves as an overview workflow showing how you can create repositories, update documentation, and utilize the asset library.
Creating a repository
A repository is a central hub for finalized documentation. Repositories and all content published in them are accessible to everyone in the organization. Repositories can be organized by department, team, process type, etc. In the example below, there are 11 repositories organized by department.
From the repository page, a process manager can create a new repository. When creating a new repository, you must assign a repository owner. Repository owners manage repository settings, review edits to documentation, and can approve submitted content.
You can select multiple repository owners, including yourself. Note that the repository settings can be adjusted at any point to add or remove repository owners.
Inside the new repository, process documentation can be newly created or imported, and folders can be created to organize documents. Let’s say someone wants to create a brand new process. They can select Create new > select Process > and a new Lucidchart board will be created.
Note that the options available to you may differ depending on your role. For more information on how each role can add a process to a repository, check out this article.
Approval workflow
All process documents that are newly created or updated in a repository first go through an approval workflow.
In our example, after selecting ‘create new’ and opening the Lucidchart editor, you’ll notice a bar appear across the top of the canvas indicating that the document is still in the draft stage and approval has not been submitted. Once all edits have been made, selecting Request approval will send a notification to repository owners.
You’ll know that the request has been sent for approval when the in-editor bar changes to In review as shown below.
To approve requests, repository owners navigate to the repository and select View approval requests to get a list view of processes awaiting approval. Repository owners can review the changes, provide feedback, and approve or deny. Once approved, the new document or update is published to the repository.
In this same view, editors can navigate to their requests, view their status, and select Cancel request if needed.
Once repository owners have approved new or edited documentation, the document is published and is visible to everyone within the repository.
When opening a published document, you’ll notice you have comment-only permissions. To make changes to published documents, users must select ‘suggest edits’ in the top-right corner of the editor. Doing so will create a new draft in which users can make changes before submitting the document for another round of approval.
In a user’s document list, published documents are labeled as a Published Process. Drafts are easily identified with Draft of “Document Title”.
Asset Library
To easily edit documents that contain sub-processes or compliance steps, editors can leverage the asset library. The asset library is a collection of all published repository documents that can be inserted into the canvas as reusable components.
It is accessed from within the Lucidchart editor in the left-hand panel. From here, repository documents can be dragged into the canvas as an embedded link.
In the example below, the Management approval flow document is a process that has been approved and published in the repository. This document is listed in the asset library. It can be dragged onto the canvas and added to the business flow diagram that is currently being edited. Once added to the canvas, it can be seen as a step in the business flow process. Any approved changes made to the management approval flow will automatically be updated in the business flow document.
That’s a wrap on the Process Accelerator!
The Process Accelerator simplifies and standardizes the entire documentation process. It offers repositories to store your official company documentation, an approval workflow to streamline changes, and an asset library to edit and scale your content easily and efficiently.
To learn more, check out these articles from the Lucid Help Center:
- Process Accelerator overview
- Use repositories to centralize and standardize your organization's processes
- Use the asset library to maintain process consistency
