Use pools in process models
Pools represent participants in a process. Klarify supports three pool types: Process Pool, Blackbox Pool, and Linked Pool. Choose the type that matches what the participant does in your diagram.
Process Pool
A Process Pool is the main pool — the one that contains the process you are modeling.
- Holds the full process flow: events, activities, gateways, and the sequence flows between them.
- Can be divided into swim lanes to show who is responsible for each part of the work. Lanes can be split to create nested lanes for finer responsibility splits.
- A process model can have at most one Process Pool, and adding one is optional. Simple process models do not need one.
Add a Process Pool when you want to organize the process into lanes representing the participants who perform the work.
Blackbox Pool
A Blackbox Pool represents an external participant that interacts with your process but whose internal work you do not model.
- Has no internal flow — no events, activities, gateways, or lanes inside.
- Connects to the rest of the diagram only through message flows.
- Supports the multi-instance marker to indicate that more than one instance of the participant takes part (for example, multiple suppliers responding to a single request for quotes).
Use a Blackbox Pool when you need to show that an outside party (a customer, a supplier, an external system) sends or receives messages during the process, but you do not need to document what they do internally.
Linked Pool
A Linked Pool is a type of Blackbox Pool that links to another process model or global task in your organization.
- Behaves like a Blackbox Pool: no internal flow, connects through message flows, supports the multi-instance marker.
- Conceptually similar to a call activity or global task, but sits outside the regular process flow as an external participant rather than as a step inside it.
- The linked document carries the detail of what the participant does.
Use a Linked Pool when the external participant’s work is already modeled elsewhere and you want to point to it without embedding it in the current process.
LaneSets
A LaneSet is the container that holds lanes. Wherever lanes appear in a diagram, they live inside a LaneSet.
- A Process Pool contains a LaneSet — its swim lanes belong to that LaneSet.
- A subprocess also has a LaneSet when you add lanes to it. Subprocesses do not have their own Process Pool; lanes inside a subprocess are scoped to that subprocess via its LaneSet.
A LaneSet is not a pool. Lanes inside a LaneSet can be split into nested lanes for finer responsibility splits.
Comparison
| Process Pool | Blackbox Pool | Linked Pool | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contains internal flow | Yes | No | No |
| Can have swim lanes | Yes | No | No |
| Connects via message flows | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-instance marker | No | Yes | Yes |
| Points to another document | No | No | Yes |