Generating next level

Generating the conceptual model, or next level up, is the inverse process to drilling down on an Activity.

In any Process Navigator Multi-Map, there is a set of Activities that have no parents. These are referred to as top-level Activities. A set of top-level Activities, as contained within a Node, has a set of Inputs and Outputs. To generate the next level up in the Activity hierarchy, Process Navigator carries out the following steps:

  • A new Process Navigator map is created.
  • Process Navigator identifies all top-level sets of Activities within the current processing scope (see page 85).
  • For each set of top-level Activities contained within a Node, Process Navigator creates a single, new Activity on the higher level and names it the same as the Node. This naming scheme therefore requires that a Node shape is present and named on every page included in a Generate Next Level.
  • Process Navigator analyses the flow and then drops the set of Inputs and Outputs to synchronise with the lower level of the hierarchy.  - NOTE: If Enable Match by Property is being used, the Off-Page Link Reference field in the Properties.xml will be used as the Input or Output name.
  • Finally, Process Navigator adjusts the layout and adds hyperlinks from the Activities on the new higher level into the lower level.

As an example, the recruitment process maps have the following Nodes:

  • Initiate recruitment
  • Drafting the Shortlist
  • Selecting the Candidate

In all three maps, all Activities are top level Activities. Process Navigator now determines the Inputs and Outputs of each of the new Activities and analyses if there is a flow between them.

This results in the following diagram:

Generate Next Level Wizard Step-by-Step

NOTE: Ensure that all maps that are to be used have Nodes.  If maps do not contain Nodes or Node names, then they will not be used to generate the next level.

Step One

Selecting Multi-Map > Generate Next Level from the Process Navigator menu bar launches the Generate Next Level Wizard. Click Next.

Step Two
The second page of the Wizard allows you to select the pages that you wish to include on the next level.

Use CTRL-Click to multi-select pages.

TIP: Once a map has been included in a Generate Next Level, it no longer has any top-level Activities and will therefore not appear on this screen a second time. To re-generate Next Level, you must first delete or rename the files that contain the previously generated next level.

NOTE: Where there are several maps in a single file, all the maps will be listed individually.

Step Three
The third step of the Wizard allows you to enter a file name and path, and a page name for the file that will contain the next level diagram.

Enter the file name and path, or browse to find the file and path you want.

Click on the ‘Finish’ button to generate the next level. This will load and create the new map in Visio.

NOTE: When Process Navigator creates the new map, it will remain open in Microsoft Visio and this is so that you can add a Node and Node name to the new map and save it.

Double-clicking the Activities will enable you to drill down to the lower level maps.

Working with the recruitment process example, including all three maps in ‘The recruitment process’ map, leads to the summary map at the top of this page being produced. The Node can be added and named ‘The recruitment process’.

You can then generate next level once more and this gives the following high-level conceptual model of the recruitment process.

To drill down through the Activity hierarchy from the newly generated levels, simply double-click the Activity or follow its hyperlink. Note that following the hyperlink does not check for orphans. Please see Orphans for further information.