The Explorer (Diagram Repository)

The Explorer acts as a diagram repository of a Signavio Workspace. You can also access features for process analysis here. 

The Editor and the Explorer are two separate parts of the SAP Signavio Process Manager. The Editor focuses on the creation of diagrams and the Explorer allows management in a folder structure.

Basically, the Explorer serves two different purposes:

1. Manage content (folders and diagrams)
   • Create and manage your folder structure (including the access rights management for individual folders)
   • Save, copy, delete and move diagrams(all kind of diagrams)
   • Share and publish diagrams to the Collaboration Hub
   • Manage / restore revisions of diagrams
   • Import / export diagrams
2. Utilize Process Analysis features
   • Dictionary (central business object repository)
   • Reporting (create standard reports on processes)
   • Simulation (simulate different instances of a process)
   • Diagram comparison(compare different versions or different diagrams)

Note

The features Dictionary, Reporting and Simulation will be covered in dedicated lessons in this course.

How to use the Explorer?

The following video gives you a detailed insight into the Explorer and explains: 

• The structure of the Explorer
• The integrated search
• The menu bar and functionalities
• The"Help" section

Feel free to check our User Guide. It contains additional information and explains every feature of the menu bar!

Check out the User Guide: Explorer overview | SAP Help Portal

Common questions from customers are: "¿What is the "right" folder structure to organize process models or how to treat sensitive processes?" As follows, we will share some best-practices with you. User access rights are granted at the folder level (but they can also be diagram specific), so a suitable structure is important from the start.

The answer to that question depends on the structure of your company. Departmental processes can be organized in department-specific folderds (e g. like HR or "Manufacturing") with additional subfolders for further classifications.

In the following example, all company-related processes are stored in department folders which are subordinate to the "ACME AG" parent folder. This way it is easier to grant reading rights to processes for the parent folder instead of granting access rights for each subfolder.

Sensitive processes should be managed separately, if there is a need to exclude them from the regular user access. The following example shows one possibility how such a structure can look like.

Just imagine there are 13 different variants of our process. Find the relevant process by filtering the publishing state via the advanced search.

Select each level in the figure for more information.