How to use shape cards
Build a flowchart inside a journey map with square, diamond, circle, triangle, hexagon, and pill shapes joined by arrows.
A shape card is a single diagram node. Use a diamond where a process branches and a pill where it starts or ends, then join them with connector arrows.
How to add a shape card to a flow or freeform lane
Shape cards are only offered in flow lanes and freeform lanes. The card picker in a text lane, a grid lane, or any other lane type has no shapes in it.
In both lane types, adding a card takes a modifier key, because plain clicking and dragging draws a connector:
In a flow lane - hold Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows), hover an empty cell, and click + Add card.
In a freeform lane - hold Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) and click any spot on the canvas.
SHAPES is the first group in the picker that opens, above the Text quick-select, laid out as a grid of six swatches rather than a labelled row: Square, Diamond, Circle, Triangle, Hexagon, and Pill. Hover a swatch to see its name. For the rest of the picker and the shared add-card mechanics, see How to add and edit cards.
Click a swatch to drop that shape straight into the lane. There's no second step and no sub-menu. In a freeform lane the shape lands exactly where you clicked, so you can spread a diagram across the canvas instead of following the columns.
Important: One shape can't be changed into another
Nothing on the toolbar turns a square into a diamond. Delete the card with the trash icon and add the shape you want instead.
How to set a shape's label
A shape card carries a label underneath the shape rather than text inside it, and typing while the shape is selected does nothing. A new shape arrives with the placeholder Label.
Select the shape and click Label on the floating toolbar, then type into the box that opens below the shape. Click anywhere outside the box to commit what you typed. Pressing Escape cancels the edit and leaves the previous label in place.
How to put an icon inside a shape
Click Icon on the toolbar and pick one of the suggested icons, or search the library by name. The icon sits inside the shape and the label stays underneath it, which is how you mark a node as a message, a check, or a failure without writing it out. Click Remove icon to clear it again.
How to set a shape's colour, background, and border
The paint bucket on the toolbar opens the same picker as any other card, with the accent colour grid, Brand colors, and the four Background style options. A shape can be a solid block of colour, a pale tint, or an outline on a transparent fill. See Card color and background style for how the styles differ.
Border is specific to shape cards. Click it and choose the solid or dashed line. Solid is the default, and a dashed outline reads well for a step that's optional, out of scope, or not yet agreed.
How to connect shapes with arrows
Connectors come from the lane, not from the card, so a shape connects exactly like an ordinary card. Click a shape to show its four attach points, one at the middle of each edge, then drag from an attach point onto the card you want the arrow to point at.
Shapes and ordinary cards connect to each other freely, so a diamond can branch out to a text card and back again. For drawing, re-routing, and removing connectors, see How to use flow lanes. For the same arrows on an open canvas, see How to use freeform lanes.
How to start a shape flowchart from a flow lane template
Two of the flow lane templates are built from shape cards. BPMN lays out swimlanes of shape nodes with labelled and dashed connectors, and Decision tree branches diamonds into outcome squares. Both get you a working diagram faster than placing every node yourself, and every shape in them stays editable. Click Templates in the lane header to pick one, and see How to use flow lanes for what the other templates do.
Important: A template adds to a lane, it doesn't replace what's there
Applying BPMN or Decision tree to a lane that already holds cards keeps those cards and adds the template's swimlanes below them, and it renames the lane after the template. Apply a template to a fresh flow lane.
What shape cards can't do
A shape card is minimal: a label, an optional icon, a colour and background, and a border style are the whole feature set, and there's no card details panel behind them. Compared with an ordinary card, a shape card has no:
text formatting, since the label is plain text with no bold, size, font, or list controls
Card header
details panel, and so no Personas, Card tags, or Comments
Duplicate, Copy, Expand, Shrink, or Height, and no three-dot menu to hold them
place in Change card type, in either direction, so a text card can't become a shape and a shape can't become anything else
If a node in your diagram needs tags, personas, or comments, use an ordinary card for that node and connect it to the shapes around it. The BPMN template does exactly this, mixing plain cards into the same connector chain as its shapes. For everything an ordinary card can do, see How to add and edit cards.
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