How to Create a Swimlane Flowchart in Excel (With Easy Steps)

What Is a Swimlane Flowchart?

A Swimlane Flowchart is a dynamic tool. It allocates tasks and defines deadlines in a business process. This particular flowchart gives a visual of the process of a business. It visibly separates task sharing and responsibilities for the sub-processes of a business process.

Components of a Swimlane Flowchart

Start/End: The oval depicts the beginning and end of any procedure.
Process: The rectangular boxes in the flowchart show different processes of activity.
Decision: A diamond shape in the diagram represents the query in the flowchart.
Input/Output: The parallelogram with curving curves shows data entering and departing the flowchart.

How to Create a Swimlane Flowchart in Excel: Step-by-Step Guideline

STEP 1 – Create Swimlane Containers

Create two sections like the following image. The two sections will represent Project Name and Process Name. We will give input in these two sections as per our project.

Select row numbers 5 to 8. Right-click on the selected rows.
Click on the option Row Height.

Set the value 50 in the Row height input field.
Click on OK.

Select cells B5:B8.
Go to the Home tab.
Click on the Borders icon and select All Borders from the drop-down menu.

Select cells C5:L8.
Go to the Home tab.
Click on the Borders icon and select More Borders from the drop-down menu.

This will open the Format Cells dialogue box.
Go to Border.
Select the border style Outline from the Presets section.
From the Border section, only select the middle horizontal line.
Click on OK.

The outline of our swimlane flowchart is ready.

Read More: How to Create a Flowchart in Excel

STEP 2 – Label Containers

Select cell B5. Label Customer in that container.
Name the containers in cells B6, B7, and B8. We put Area 1, Area 2, and Area 3.

STEP 3 – Create a Swimlane Flowchart

Go to the Insert tab.
Select Illustrations, then choose Shapes and pick the Oval shape.

Click on cell C5 to insert that Oval shape in the Customer container.

Right-click on the Oval shape in cell C5.
Select the option Edit Text from the context menu.

Type Start in the Oval shape.

Insert a ‘Rectangle: Rounded Corners’ beside Start.

To connect the two shapes, we will insert an arrow.
Go to Insert Shape.
Select the Line Arrow shape from the drop-down menu.

Insert an arrow to connect the Oval shape and Rectangular Shape.

Right-click on the Line Arrow.
Select the option Format Shape.

From the Format Shape box, set the value of width as 2 for Line Arrow.
Set the color of the Line Arrow to Black.

We will get the Line Arrow like the following image.

Insert a ‘Rectangle: Rounded Corners’ shape and Diamond shape in the ‘Area 1’ container.
Connect the shapes with Line Arrow like the following image.

Go to the ‘Area 2’ container.
Insert a Rectangle, Rectangle: Rounded Corners, Cylinder shape in that container.
Rename the shapes No, Step 3, and System
Connect the shapes with Line Arrow like the image below.

In container ‘Area 3’ insert a Rectangle, Rectangle: Rounded Corners, Flowchart: Document shape.
Rename the shapes Yes, Step 3, and Documents.
Create a shape End in ‘container 1’.
Connect this shape to ‘container 3’ and ‘Container 4’ with Line Arrow.