AseptSoft Core Documentation
AseptSoft Core Documentation
Breadcrumbs

Processes Workspace

The Processes Workspace is the single window where you build and navigate the entire structure of a module's process design. It lays the design out as five linked columns that read left to right — Processes → Steps → Conditions, with two further columns, Sub-steps → Sub-conditions, for steps that contain their own internal sequence. As you click through the columns, each one reveals the contents of the item selected in the column to its left, so you can drill from a whole process all the way down to a single transition condition without ever leaving the window.

💡 Open the Processes Workspace from the Processes panel on the Module Ribbon. The window remembers its size and your column widths between sessions, and it can be docked as a narrow vertical strip beside your drawing or stretched wide across a second monitor.

🔄 The Five Columns

https://downloads.aseptsoft.ch/documentation/images/Process-Design/processes-workspace.png

Each column shows one level of the design hierarchy. Selecting an item populates the column to its right.

Column

Accent

Shows

Processes

Orange

Every process in the module (for example CIP Rinse Cycle, SIP, Production Fill), plus any process templates.

Steps


The ordered steps of the selected process (for example Pre-Rinse, Caustic Wash, Final Rinse, Drain).

Conditions


The algorithm conditions of the selected step — the transitions and actions that govern when the step completes. See Algorithm Design.

Sub-steps

Teal

For a composite step, the internal sequence of sub-steps it contains. See Composite Steps and Sub-Processes.

Sub-conditions


The algorithm conditions of the selected sub-step.

You decide which columns are visible using the small eye toggles in each column header. A typical day-to-day layout keeps Processes, Steps and Conditions open and hides the two sub-step columns until you actually work with composite steps. Your choice — along with the relative width of each column — is remembered for next time.

Resizing and arranging columns

Drag the splitter between any two visible columns to rebalance the space. Widths are stored as proportions, so the layout scales sensibly whether the window is docked narrow or stretched wide. Hidden columns reserve no space at all — hiding the Conditions column gives that width straight back to its neighbours.

✅ Active versus Selected: the dual cascade

The workspace tracks two independent paths through your design at the same time, and shows them differently so you always know which is which:

Cascade

What it is

How it looks

Active

The live path the rest of AseptSoft is following — the process and step whose colours are painted on your P&ID right now.

A chunky coloured stripe down the left edge of the row plus a column-tinted background (orange for the active process, blue for the active step, green for the active condition).

Selected

The path you are currently inspecting in the workspace, which may differ from what is live on the drawing.

A neutral light-grey highlight, clearly distinct from the bold active styling.

When the path you are inspecting branches away from the live path, the columns past the branch point dim slightly. That fading is a deliberate cue: it tells you at a glance that you are looking at a parallel branch rather than the sequence currently driving the drawing.

To make the path you are inspecting the live one, click the Activate (▶) button pinned on the left of any row. Activating a row also selects it, so the two cascades line back up and the dimming clears.

🧭 The Interactive Breadcrumb

Across the top of the window, a breadcrumb shows the live path as a row of clickable chips — Process › Step › Sub-step (the sub-step chip appears only when the active step is composite). The breadcrumb always reflects the active path.

  1. Click any chip to open a short menu of its siblings at that level.

  2. Pick a sibling to activate it — the drawing, the ribbon and the workspace all follow the choice.

For example, with CIP Rinse Cycle › Caustic Wash showing, clicking the Caustic Wash chip lists every step in the cycle, letting you jump the live state straight to Final Rinse without scrolling the Steps column.

🖱️ Building and Editing Structure

Creating items

Every column has a + button in its header and an empty footer button (for example + Step (empty)) for adding a new item at that level. A newly created step or sub-step is selected automatically, so its (still empty) Conditions column appears immediately with a ready-to-use prompt — no extra click required.

When a column has no content to show, it displays a centred call-to-action in place of an empty list. Selecting a leaf step, for instance, offers a Make composite + add first sub-step button right inside the Sub-steps column; an empty Conditions column offers + Add transition and + Add action buttons that seed a complete, valid condition in one click.

Row actions

Hovering a row reveals its action buttons. Common operations — rename, duplicate, delete — are available on processes, steps, sub-steps and conditions alike. The Activate (▶) button is always visible on the left of each row because it is the most-used action.

Editing a step code inline

Each step row shows its code as a small badge before the name, clearly separating the identifier from the descriptive text. Click the badge to edit the code directly in a small prompt; the workspace validates that the new code is unique within the process. When a step has no code yet, a muted placeholder badge appears on hover so the option is easy to discover. The naming convention that fills these codes in automatically is configured in the naming rules — see Auto-Naming Rules.

Drag and drop

Drag rows to reorganise the design:

  • Reorder within a column by dragging a row up or down. A blue insertion line shows exactly where the row will land when you release.

  • Move a step into another process by dragging it onto a process row in the Processes column. The cursor switches to a copy glyph for this kind of drop, where the landing position does not matter.

  • Adopt a sub-step up to top level by dragging it onto a process — it becomes a regular step of that process.

⚠️ Dropping items into a process that follows a template is declined with a short message. The structure of a template instance is owned by its template — make structural changes on the template itself. See Process Templates.

🔍 Searching and Ordering

The search box filters the columns so only matching processes, steps and conditions remain in view — handy in a module with dozens of processes. The Processes column also has an order-by control: list processes alphabetically or in their defined sequence. Whatever you choose here also drives the order of the processes gallery on the ribbon, so the two surfaces always agree. Templates always collect together at the end of the list, visually distinct in purple.

🔄 The Refresh Button

A single Refresh button in the toolbar rebuilds the workspace from the ground up: it re-reads every process, step and condition, snaps the inspected path back to the live one, and re-applies your ordering preference. It is the one-click way out of any stale view without closing and reopening the window.

📋 Workflow: Build a CIP Rinse Cycle

  1. Open the Processes Workspace from the Module Ribbon.

  2. In the Processes column, click + and name the process CIP Rinse Cycle.

  3. With the new process selected, use the Steps column footer to add Pre-Rinse, Caustic Wash, Final Rinse and Drain in order. Each new step is selected for you as it is created.

  4. Select Pre-Rinse. In the Conditions column, click + Add transition and define when the step completes — for example, hold until a timer reaches the rinse duration. See Algorithm Design.

  5. Repeat for each step, walking down the Steps column. The active stripe and breadcrumb keep you oriented.

  6. Use the breadcrumb chips at the top to jump the live state to any step and confirm the P&ID colours match the intended valve positions for that step.