10 Flowchart Examples You Can Copy and Edit

Every team runs on processes that nobody has drawn: how a new hire gets a laptop, who signs off a refund, what happens when a ticket sits for a day. The flowchart examples below cover ten of the most common ones, from HR and finance to product and IT. Each comes with a clean diagram and the Mermaid code behind it, so you can paste the code into a flowchart tool, change the labels, and have your own version in minutes.

Direct answer. The most useful flowchart examples for business are employee onboarding, refund approval, order processing, user registration, support escalation, content approval, a decision tree, IT troubleshooting, hiring, and a simple programming flowchart. Each uses ovals for start and end, rectangles for steps, diamonds for yes/no decisions and arrows for the order of work.

How to Read These Flowchart Examples

All ten charts use the same four colors so the structure reads at a glance: purple ovals mark the start and end, white rectangles are actions, yellow diamonds are decisions, and blue parallelograms show input or output. The main path runs straight down; exceptions branch to the side and either end or loop back.

Each example lists the Mermaid code under the image. Mermaid is a plain-text format for diagrams: A[Step] is a box, B{Question?} is a diamond, A([Start]) is an oval and -- Yes --> is a labeled arrow. Copy a block, edit the words, and paste it into any tool that reads Mermaid. For the full method behind these charts, see our guide on how to make a flowchart.

What Makes a Good Flowchart Example

Good flowchart examples are small enough to read on one screen and specific enough to copy. The ten below were chosen with three rules in mind:

• One process, one goal. Each chart starts at a single trigger and finishes at a clear outcome, so the boundaries are obvious.
• Two to four decisions. Fewer, and a numbered list does the job; more, and the chart should be split into parts.
• Real numbers in the decisions. "Refund over $200?" and "Resolved within 24 hours?" can be followed by anyone. "Is it a big refund?" can't.

Here is how the examples map to the diagram types people most often need:

Example	Diagram type	Typical owner
Onboarding, refund, hiring	Process flowchart	HR, finance, support
Order processing	Process flow diagram	Operations
User registration	User flow diagram	Product and UX
Shipping options	Decision tree	Ops, customer teams
Wi-Fi troubleshooting	Troubleshooting chart	IT and help desk
Even or odd	Programming flowchart	Developers, students

1. Employee Onboarding Flowchart

An onboarding flowchart lines up HR, IT and the hiring manager so nothing waits on the new hire's first morning. The one decision that matters most is whether equipment is ready by day one; the loaner-laptop branch keeps the first day on track either way. Notice that each step names who owns it (HR, IT, manager); that habit turns a flowchart into a checklist people can act on.

flowchart TD
  A([Offer accepted]) --> B[HR sends welcome email and paperwork]
  B --> C[IT orders laptop and creates accounts]
  C --> D{Equipment ready by day 1?}
  D -- No --> E[Manager sets up a loaner laptop]
  D -- Yes --> F[Day 1: orientation and team intro]
  E --> F
  F --> G[Week 1: shadow a teammate]
  G --> H[30-day check-in with manager]
  H --> I([Onboarding complete])

2. Refund Approval Flowchart

Refunds are where inconsistent decisions cost money, which makes this one of the most practical flowchart examples for a support team. The chart answers three questions in order: is the request within policy, has the item come back, and does the amount need a manager.

flowchart TD
  A([Customer requests refund]) --> B{Within 30 days of delivery?}
  B -- No --> C[Offer store credit or repair]
  B -- Yes --> D{Item returned and inspected?}
  D -- No --> E[Send prepaid return label]
  E --> D
  D -- Yes --> F{Refund over $200?}
  F -- Yes --> G[Manager approves]
  F -- No --> H[Refund to original payment method]
  G --> H
  H --> I([Notify customer])
  C --> I

The written version of this same process appears as the filled-in example in our SOP template; the flowchart and the SOP work best side by side.

3. Order Processing Flowchart (Process Flow Diagram)

Order processing is the classic process flow diagram: a linear workflow with two checkpoints, payment and stock. Note the loop on failed payment, which sends the order back through the payment check instead of starting a new order. The tracking email uses the parallelogram output symbol, because it sends information out of the process rather than doing work inside it.

flowchart TD
  A([Order placed]) --> B{Payment authorized?}
  B -- No --> C[Email customer to update payment]
  C --> B
  B -- Yes --> E{All items in stock?}
  E -- No --> F[Split shipment or backorder the rest]
  E -- Yes --> G[Pick and pack]
  F --> G
  G --> H[Print label and hand to carrier]
  H --> I[/Send tracking email/]
  I --> J([Order delivered])

"Process flow diagram" has two meanings. In operations and business, it is a flowchart of a workflow like this one. In chemical and process engineering, a process flow diagram (PFD) shows plant equipment, such as reactors, pumps and heat exchangers, and the material streams between them, drawn with equipment symbols rather than flowchart boxes. The ten examples here are the business kind.

4. User Registration User Flow Diagram

A user flow diagram maps the path a person takes through a product to reach one goal. This sign-up flow has two branches worth designing for: the one-click Google route that skips the password step, and the email-verification loop where many sign-ups stall.

flowchart TD
  A([Lands on homepage]) --> B[Clicks Sign up]
  B --> C{Continue with Google?}
  C -- Yes --> F[Onboarding: picks a use case]
  C -- No --> D[Enters email and password]
  D --> E{Email verified?}
  E -- No --> G[Resend verification email]
  G --> E
  E -- Yes --> F
  F --> H[Creates first project]
  H --> I([Lands on dashboard])

User flows describe actions and decisions, not screen layouts. Draw the flow first, count the steps between entry and goal, and look for any step that can be removed before anyone opens a design file.

5. Customer Support Escalation Flowchart

An escalation flowchart tells every agent exactly when a ticket moves up a tier. The time limit in the first decision ("within 24 hours?") is what makes the chart enforceable; without a number, escalation becomes a judgment call. The engineering branch merges back into Tier 2, so the customer always hears from the same person who owns the ticket.

flowchart TD
  A([Ticket opened]) --> B[Tier 1 checks help center and order history]
  B --> C{Resolved within 24 hours?}
  C -- Yes --> Z([Close and send survey])
  C -- No --> D[Escalate to Tier 2 specialist]
  D --> E{Bug or outage?}
  E -- Yes --> G[Engineering on-call fixes the issue]
  E -- No --> F[Tier 2 replies with the fix]
  G --> F
  F --> Z

6. Content Publishing Approval Flowchart

Marketing teams lose days to unclear sign-off. This chart makes the two review gates explicit: an editorial loop that repeats until the draft is ready, and a legal check that only applies to posts with claims, pricing or regulated topics. Keeping legal review on a side branch means most posts skip it, which is usually the biggest time saver in the whole process.

flowchart TD
  A([Writer submits draft]) --> B[Editor reviews]
  B --> C{Changes needed?}
  C -- Yes --> D[Writer revises]
  D --> B
  C -- No --> E{Claims or legal check needed?}
  E -- Yes --> F[Legal review]
  E -- No --> G[Schedule post]
  F --> G
  G --> H([Publish and share])

7. Decision Tree Example: Choosing a Shipping Option

A decision tree is a flowchart made only of questions and outcomes. It fans out from one root question and never loops back, so every path ends at a final answer. This one picks a shipping method from two facts about the order.

flowchart TD
  A{Order over $100?} -- Yes --> B{Ships within the country?}
  A -- No --> C{Parcel under 1 kg?}
  B -- Yes --> D[Free express shipping]
  B -- No --> E[Tracked international, buyer pays duties]
  C -- Yes --> F[Standard letter post]
  C -- No --> G[Standard parcel, flat-rate fee]

Decision trees work best with three levels or fewer. Past that, the bottom row gets too wide to read, and a lookup table usually serves the reader better.

8. IT Troubleshooting Flowchart

Troubleshooting charts order the checks from cheapest to most expensive. This Wi-Fi example rules out the switch first, then tests whether the problem is the device or the network, and only opens a ticket once the simple fixes have been tried. Ending the chart with "Open IT ticket with the error message" also improves the ticket, since the help desk receives the details it would otherwise ask for.

flowchart TD
  A([Laptop won't connect to Wi-Fi]) --> B{Wi-Fi switched on?}
  B -- No --> C[Turn Wi-Fi on]
  C --> Z([Connected])
  B -- Yes --> D{Other devices online?}
  D -- No --> E[Restart the router and wait 2 minutes]
  D -- Yes --> G[Forget the network and reconnect]
  E --> F{Working now?}
  G --> F
  F -- Yes --> Z
  F -- No --> H([Open IT ticket with the error message])

9. Hiring Process Flowchart

A hiring flowchart keeps every candidate on the same path, which makes the process fairer and easier to explain. The two rejection points share one end shape, and a declined offer loops back to screening rather than restarting the whole search.

flowchart TD
  A([Role approved]) --> B[Post job and screen applications]
  B --> D{Meets the must-haves?}
  D -- No --> X([Send a polite rejection])
  D -- Yes --> E[Phone screen, then panel interview]
  E --> G{Team agrees to hire?}
  G -- No --> X
  G -- Yes --> H[Check references and make offer]
  H --> I{Offer accepted?}
  I -- No --> B
  I -- Yes --> J([Start onboarding])

10. Programming Flowchart: Even or Odd

Programming flowcharts are how many people first meet the format. This one reads a number, tests it with the modulo operator, and prints the result, and it shows the input/output parallelogram that business charts rarely need.

flowchart TD
  A([Start]) --> B[/Read number n/]
  B --> C{n mod 2 = 0?}
  C -- Yes --> D[/Print 'Even'/]
  C -- No --> E[/Print 'Odd'/]
  D --> F([End])
  E --> F

Mermaid's flowchart documentation warns that a node labeled "end" in all lowercase breaks the chart, which is why the final node above reads "End". The same page lists the [/text/] syntax used here for input and output steps.

Turn Any Example Into Your Own Editable Flowchart

Playyy's AI flowchart generator turns Mermaid flowchart code or a plain-text description of a process into an editable flowchart with real shapes, text and connectors. Paste any code block above, or describe your own process in a few sentences, and the chart appears on a canvas where every label can be retyped and every box dragged with its arrows attached.

The fastest route from these examples to your own chart:

1. Copy the Mermaid block closest to your process.
2. Rename the steps and add or delete lines; each line is one arrow.
3. Paste it into Playyy, then adjust colors, spacing and fonts on the canvas.
4. Export the result, or export it to Excalidraw to keep editing there.

Charts that already exist in draw.io or Excalidraw import directly. Standard boxes, diamonds, ovals, labels and straight connectors come across; swimlanes and custom shapes arrive as rectangles and curved lines are straightened, so a quick tidy-up after import is normal. Playyy reads Mermaid's flowchart and graph types, which covers every example on this page. To see how these charts fit into a wider set of operations documents, browse process flowcharts in Playyy.

Conclusion

The best flowchart examples share three habits: one clear start and end, a straight main path with exceptions branching to the side, and a labeled answer on every decision. Pick the example closest to your process, edit its Mermaid code, and check each path with the people who do the work. Paste the code into Playyy's AI flowchart generator to get an editable chart you can restyle and share.