Expanding and Collapsing Call Activities, Pools and Subprocesses

Call activities can be collapsed in process views or definitions to hide contents; the same applies for subprocesses in referencing views.
Pools can always be collapsed if this does not hide any essential model information.

Prerequisites

The process that contains the subprocess needs to be displayed as a referencing view.

The collaboration that contains the pool is either shown as a referencing view or the pool is provided in such a way that its content is not essential for modeling of the collaboration. This is the case if a pool does not contain a process definition or have any message flows that flow into or out of the pool.

Context

Attention

Expanding and collapsing diagram elements can irreversibly affect the diagram's layout.

Elements appear in their current expanded or collapsed state in the model's documentation.

To make things simpler, BPMN allows a collaboration's participants/pools, call activities and subprocesses to be shown as collapsed within a process. Innovator only allows this for subprocesses in referencing views due to conceptual reasons; this constraint also applies to pools.

Call activities in processes
Subprocesses in process views
Those involved in the collaboration and/or pool in collaborations that do not contain a process definition or a process that is source or target of message flows.
Collaboration participants or pools in collaboration views

Two commands in the context menu are used in the BPMN diagram to make sure diagram elements are not unintentionally moved when expanding or reducing call activities and pools (collaboration participants):

Show Content Preview (Click)
Embed Content (Shift+Click)

Note

The subprocess' state at the time it was last converted into a call activity or at the time it was last fully shown is expressed when it is extended.
The subprocess' current process definition can be accessed by embedding the content and selecting the Process View>Show Complete context menu command. The Process View>Move Process Definition to here context menu command also refreshes the display.

Click on the collapsed element's expand icon to call the commands or use the extension icon's context menu .

Show Content Preview (Click)
The subprocess of the call activity or pool is shown in a separate window with the zoom function.

Embed Content (Shift+Click)
The subprocess of the call activity or pool is shown as minimized within the existing, unchanged diagram element.

Expand to Content (Ctrl+Click)
The subprocess of the call activity or pool is shown as expanded. Neighboring diagram elements may be irreversibly moved.

Note

A call activity and pool respectively can only be reduced if they contain a complete and correct view of the process. A reduced view is interpreted as a view that can only be graphically displayed at this point, which is why it cannot be hidden. If you want a complete view that is always kept synchronous instead of a reduced view, select the Process View>Show all details context menu command, reduce the nodes and then embed the content by holding the [Shift]key down on the expand icon for expanding .

If the process contained is a definition, reducing the nodes automatically stores the process definition in the special process diagram; this is a fixed assignment to a process and always contains a complete and correct view of the process.

How to proceed

To reduce a pool or subprocess, click on the expanding icon.

The pool or subprocess is collapsed. The icon is replaced by the expanding icon.
To expand a pool or subprocess:

Click on the icon to show the contents preview .

The subprocess of the call activity or pool is shown in a separate window with the zoom function. The icon is replaced by the collapsing icon.
To show the contents as embedded, keep the [Shift] button pressed and click on the icon .

The subprocess of the call activity or pool is shown as minimized within the existing, unchanged diagram element. The icon is replaced by the collapsing icon.
To expand the contents, keep the [Ctrl] button pressed and click on the icon .

The subprocess of the call activity or pool is shown as expanded. Neighboring diagram elements may be irreversibly moved. The icon is replaced by the collapsing icon.