Each process flow that you create in FlexSim has several general properties (settings) that affect the behavior of its activities and tokens. You can access and edit a process flow's general properties by clicking on an empty area somewhere in the process flow (so that nothing else is selected). The general properties will appear in the Quick Properties pane, as shown in the following image:
Each of these properties will be explained in the following sections.
Process Flow Name
You can use the Process Flow Name box to change the name of the current process flow. Simply click in the box and type a new name. By default, the name of the first process flow will be ProcessFlow. Subsequent process flows will be named ProcessFlow1, ProcessFlow2, etc.
Changing the name here will change the name that displays on the process flow's tab and also in the Toolbox.
You can also change the name in the ToolboxTo change a process flow name in the Toolbox, right-click the process flow and select Rename from the menu.
Image
The Image box sets the icon image for the process flow. This icon is displayed on the tab of the process flow and in the Toolbox. By default, all process flows use the flowchart icon 
.
To change the icon, you can click the Browse button 
to navigate to the icon file in your computer.
Theme
A theme is a group of visual settings that can be applied to an entire process flow. A theme can affect:
- The color of the background, activities, shared assets, tokens, etc.
- The styles of the connectors
- The font and style of the fonts
- The color and visual functionality of the containers (flow chart objects)
See Using Process Flow Themes for more information.
More Theme Settings
Use the More Theme Settings button to open the Theme dialog box. See Using Process Flow Themes for more information.
Edit Mode
The Edit Mode checkbox turns on and off the Edit Mode, which changes the Process Flow to be more user friendly for simply running a model. Turning Edit Mode off is mainly intended for use after creating a Process Flow. It will hide variables that are not set as User Accessible and it will make it so the default action when selecting a Process Flow is to open its properties window and not the model view window.
Snap to Grid
The Snap to Grid checkbox turns snapping to the grid on and off. By default, activities and display objects will automatically align to one another as they are being dragged. The grid offers an additional mechanism to neatly lay out objects.
Show Grid
The Show Grid checkbox displays or hides the the grid.
Instance Creation
The Instance Creation menu is only available on process flows that are using the Sub Flow type. This menu defines when the FlexSim system will create an instance of a sub flow. (See Process Flow Instances for more information about instances and related concepts.) This can possibly affect whether shared assets (Resources, Lists, and Zones) are global or local to instances. The menu has the following options:
- Global - If this option is selected, there will only be one instance of a sub flow running at a time. All shared assets will be shared within that sub flow.
- Per Instance - In this context, an instance refers to an object that is running the sub flow. So, for example, if two processors are using the same sub flow, each processor would be considered a separate instance. By default, when you select this option all shared assets will be local to each instance, meaning they won't share assets.
- Per Block - You might have activity blocks that each have a Run Sub Flow activity in them. Each Run Sub Flow activity might be connected to the same sub flow. When this option is selected, each activity block that runs a sub flow would be considered a separate instance. By default, when you select this option all shared assets will be local to each instance, meaning they won't share assets.
- Per Token - When this option is selected, each token that runs inside the sub flow will be a separate instance. By default, when you select this option all shared assets will be local to each instance, meaning they won't share assets.
Each shared asset (Resources, Lists, and Zones) has a Type menu in its Quick Properties. You can use this menu to control whether shared assets are global or local to instances. The menu has two options:
- Global - Shared assets will be globally accessible by all instances. For example, if you have a Resource with a count of 3, any instance that uses that Resource will deplete the total count. If one instance uses all three Resources, another instance won't be able to use it.
- Local - Shared assets will only be locally accessible to instances. For example, if you have a Resource with a count of 3, each instance will have a local copy of that Resource with a count of 3. When an instance uses a Resource will only deplete the local count. If one instance uses all three of its Resources, another instance will still have access to its three Resources as well.
Attached Objects
You will use the Attached Objects properties to add, remove, and display attached instance objects. These options are only available for the Sub Flow, Fixed Resource, and Task Executer types of process flows. See Process Flow Types for more information.
View Tokens
You can click the View Tokens button to open a window where you can see an overview of all tokens during a simulation run. The View Tokens window shows the labels and details associated with all the tokens in the Process Flow. This is particularly useful for troubleshooting your process flow. See Troubleshooting Process Flows for more information.
View Activities
You can click the View Activities button to open window where you can see an overview of all the activities in your process flow. You can also use this window to change the statistics settings of the activities in the Process Flow and to set up tracing options, which can help with troubleshooting your process flow. See Troubleshooting Process Flows for more information.
More Properties
You can click the More Properties button to open additional general properties for this process flow. You can use this window to set the variables used in the Process Flow as well as visual settings, labels, and triggers.
