Connector
A jump in the flow: the line continues at another circle with the same letter or number. The connector is a small circle with a label inside.
Easily confused with
- Terminal (start and end)The start or the end of a flowchart. The terminal is a flat oval, a rectangle with fully rounded ends, with a word such as Start or End inside.
- Off-page connectorA circle continues the flow on the same page; the home-plate shape continues it on another page.
- Initial nodeA small filled circle in a UML activity diagram is the start of the activity.
- Field-mounted instrumentAn instrument mounted in the plant, out where the process is. It is drawn as a plain circle, the “bubble”, with the instrument’s tag inside.
- ProcessSomething the system does to data: it takes inputs and turns them into outputs. In Yourdon/DeMarco notation a process is a circle, or bubble; in Gane and Sarson notation it is a rectangle with rounded corners.
How to read it
Connectors come in pairs. Where a flowline would have to cross the chart, it ends in a circle (the outconnector) and picks up again at a circle with the same label (the inconnector). ANSI X3.5-1970 defines the connector as an exit to or an entry from another part of the flowchart, and says a common identifier, a letter, number or label, goes inside both. Several connectors with one label can also gather several flowlines into one.
In the 1970 American standard the circle is also used when a flowchart runs onto another page, with the page reference written above it. IBM’s manual and many later charts use a separate Off-page connector for that.
Also searched as: circle flowchart, connector symbol, flowchart connector, on-page connector.
Look-alikes
The Off-page connector is a five-sided shape like a home plate. A Terminal (start and end) is a wide oval with Start or End in it. In a UML activity diagram a small filled circle is an initial node, the start of the activity.
Read next
- Next in Flowchart symbolsOff-page connectorThe flow continues on another page. The off-page connector is a five-sided shape like a baseball home plate, with a label or page reference inside.
- The same shape in AI labels and iconsAI iconAI-generated or AI-changed content. A badge with the letters AI, often in a circle or beside a word such as generated or modified, labels an image, video, sound or text as made or altered with artificial intelligence. The European Union publishes an official set of these icons.
More flowchart symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with circles or letters and numbers.
Sources
- Flowchart Symbols and Their Usage in Information Processing, ANSI X3.5-1970, adopted for federal use as FIPS PUB 24, American National Standards Institute; National Bureau of Standards (NIST), Sections 3.4.1, 4.4.1 and 4.8.1
- Flowcharting Techniques, IBM Data Processing Techniques, Form C20-8152, International Business Machines Corporation (bitsavers.org), Special processing symbols
- 10.3: Flowcharting, Kenneth Leroy Busbee, CSP31A C Programming, Delta College (LibreTexts Engineering), Connectors
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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