Good afternoon @Maureen H,

I just created a test document to see if I could find a quick solution. I was pleased to find something that I hope works for you too. I also noticed that when click/drag selecting the shapes it also selected the swimlane shape. However, to my delight I also found that by holding shift+clicking the swimlane would deselect the swimlane, leaving me with my original selection of shapes. Please let me know if that works for you too.

 

As you can see after holding shift+clicking on the swimlane, it deselected the it.

 

Thank you, it did not work for me.  

1. I selected by dragging on the 4 boxes in the red circle. 
2. The connectors in the area that I selected are blue. 
3. Two of the swimlanes in the area that I selected are blue. 
4. I did not get a blue box around the selected area as I would expect. 

Good morning @Maureen H,

Oh bummer, I was hoping that would work. Another option is to hold the shift key while clicking on each item you want to select. It takes a little longer, but it does allow you to select multiple items albeit one at a time.