A flow rule is the fundamental representation of a business process in Process Commander. A flow rule is an instance of the Rule-Obj-Flow rule type, which defines the sequence of processing that your application applies to work objects.

The simplest representation of a flow is a Microsoft Visio diagram, graphically identifying the tasks (shapes) and connectors (arrows) that together determine how work objects are processed. The system stores the Visio diagram (a Windows file with file type VSD) in the PegaRULES database with the flow rule.

The term process model, used in some Business Process Management materials, corresponds to a flow rule. As soon as you save the flow rule, it can be started.

You can also create the flow rule in draft mode before all the other rules it references are created. This is known as a flow shell and allows your design to be recorded and evolve into a working flow rule. A draft-mode flow rule can be saved and run to test components during development in any system where the production level is set to a value less than 5. See About System Settings Rules.

	assignment, Business Process Management, flow action, flow problem, likelihood, parent flow, Process Explorer, straight through processing, subflow, work object
	About Flow rules Flows — Concepts and terms Understanding locking and transactions in flow executions
	Atlas — Standard flow rules

Definitions — F