Swimlane diagram templates

Ready-made swimlane diagrams

Open one for the preview and the full code, and download PNG, SVG, Word or PowerPoint right there; “Open in the editor” lets you edit the text and pick a theme before exporting.

• Leave Approval Swimlane Diagram TemplateLeave request approval across four lanes (employee, line manager, department head, HR) with a two-level approval based on the number of days. Edit the Mermaid code to match your policy and export PNG, SVG, Word or PowerPoint for free.
• Purchase Approval Swimlane Diagram TemplatePurchase approval across four lanes (requesting department, procurement, finance, general manager): request, quotes, tiered approval by amount, ordering, receiving and payment. Adapt it to your procurement policy and export PNG, Word or PowerPoint for free.
• Expense Reimbursement Swimlane Diagram TemplateExpense claim process across three lanes (employee, manager, finance): collect receipts, submit, manager review, finance checks against budget and policy, payment. For finance policies and handbooks; free PNG, Word and PowerPoint export.
• Order Fulfilment Swimlane Diagram TemplateE-commerce order handling across four lanes (customer, support, warehouse, logistics): order and payment, review, stock check and restocking, picking, shipping, delivery and after-sales. Free PNG, SVG, Word and PowerPoint export.
• Cross-Department Approval Swimlane Template (Contracts)Contract approval across five lanes (requesting department, legal, finance, executive sponsor, administration): drafting, compliance and budget checks, sign-off, sealing and filing, with every return path drawn. Free PNG, Word and PowerPoint export.
• Customer Service Swimlane Diagram Template (Complaints)Issue and complaint handling across four lanes (customer, support desk, technical support, quality team): log the ticket, first-line fix or escalation, reply and confirmation, root-cause analysis when unresolved. Free PNG, Word and PowerPoint export.
• Software Release Swimlane Diagram TemplateSoftware release across four lanes (development, QA, product, operations): merge and build, regression testing, product acceptance, canary release and monitoring, with fixes looping back and rollback on failure. Free PNG, Word and PowerPoint export.

Three steps to a diagram you can share

1. Pick the template with the closest roles and click “Open in the editor”
2. Double-click nodes in the preview to rename the steps; to add a department, add one more subgraph in the code. Or send the prompt below to an AI assistant with your roles and steps and paste its whole reply back
3. Switch the layout to left-to-right if the process is long, pick a theme, and export Word or PowerPoint

How a swimlane diagram is written in Mermaid

flowchart TB
    subgraph Requester
        A[Fill in request] --> B[Submit]
        F[Receive outcome]
    end
    subgraph Manager
        C{Approved?}
    end
    subgraph Finance
        D[Record payment]
    end
    B --> C
    C -- Yes --> D
    C -- No --> F
    D --> F

Try it: copy this and paste it into the editor to render it.

• Mermaid has no dedicated swimlane syntax: a subgraph per role inside a flowchart is the lane
• A role's own steps go inside its subgraph; edges that cross roles go after all the subgraphs, otherwise the other node gets pulled into this lane
• Decisions are diamond nodes {Approved?}, with the outcomes written on the edges: -- Yes --> and -- No -->
• flowchart TB stacks the lanes and runs the process downwards; LR lays the lanes out side by side. Lane widths follow the content rather than being forced equal, but roles, steps and hand-offs stay clear

Ask an AI for your own version with this structure

Send the prompt below to ChatGPT or Claude with the parts in [brackets] replaced by yours, then paste the whole reply into the editor; the code inside is detected automatically.

Draw a swimlane diagram in Mermaid flowchart TB syntax. Use one subgraph per lane for the roles [Requester, Line manager, Finance]; put each role's steps inside its own subgraph and write the edges that cross roles after all the subgraphs. The process is: [the requester fills in and submits a request → the manager approves or rejects; if approved, finance records the payment; if rejected, the requester is notified]. Use a diamond node for the decision and label the branches Yes / No. Output only the mermaid code block.

Frequently asked questions

Can Mermaid draw swimlane diagrams?

Yes. Give each role a subgraph in a flowchart and write the cross-role edges outside the groups, and the result is a process diagram split into lanes by role. The lanes are not forced to equal width as in Visio, but roles, steps and hand-offs read the same, and changing the process only means changing text.

Swimlane diagram or plain flowchart?

A plain flowchart shows the order of steps. A swimlane diagram adds one dimension: which role or department owns each step, one lane per role. For approvals, reimbursements and order handling that pass between departments, the lanes show who is waiting on whom.

Can I use it in Excel or Word?

Export PNG or SVG and insert it into Excel, Word or PowerPoint, or export Word (docx) or PowerPoint (pptx) directly: the file holds a high-resolution image with the Mermaid code appended, so a change to the process means editing the text and exporting again rather than moving shapes around.

Can the lanes run horizontally?

Yes. Change flowchart TB to flowchart LR on the first line, or switch the direction under “Layout” in the editor: each role becomes a row and the process runs left to right, which saves height on slides.

How do I get an AI to draw our own process?

Send the prompt on this page to an AI assistant with your roles and each role's steps, plus any rules (for example “amounts over 5,000 need the general manager”). Paste its whole reply into the editor; the explanation around the code is ignored.