A flow rule is the fundamental representation of a business process in PRPC. A flow rule defines the sequence of processing that your application applies to work items.
The simplest representation of a flow is a diagram, graphically identifying the shapes and connectors that together determine how work items are processed.
PRPC provides three alternative graphical representations of a flow:
The system stores these diagrams 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 model 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.