Visio Standard 5.0 and the Art of Flowcharting

As the default computer graphics and probably the only competent illustrator of any kind in most organisations, it often falls to the drafter or CAD user to create a mixed bag of graphics including business graphics.

Visio's legendary flowcharting capacity is available in Visio Technical

Fortunately for people who use Visio Technical, many kinds of business graphics can be created very quickly and simply. In fact, many businesses graphics requirements can be created more than adequately with the excellent facilities provided in Visio Standard 5.0. Since Visio Technical is a superset of Visio Standard, all Technical users have access to the facilities of Standard. One of Visio's most powerful features is its flowcharting capability. What makes Visio flowcharting so easy and powerful? Read on...

Drag and Drop
Visio has a number of stencils that include over 200 SmartShapes that support Audit Flowcharts, Data Flow Diagrams, IDEFO and ISO diagrams, Specification and Description Language (SDL) Diagrams and Graphical Workflow Diagrams. Each of these SmartShapes can be dragged off a stencil and dropped onto a page to create professional looking documents very quickly.

Wizards
Wizards are powerful tools that guide you through the building process to accomplish complex tasks by asking the right questions in the right order and assembling the appropriate solution. Wizards are a great way to get started with more complex tasks such as connecting your drawings to external databases. The Flowcharting Wizard can help you to automatically create flowcharts from data that already exists within your company.

New Tools in 5.0
Drawing tools introduced in Visio 5.0 make flowchart layout very easy. By using the Dynamic Connector, Visio automatically connects shapes as you drag them onto the page. This eliminates the need to manually links shapes once you have roughed them into position.. Automatic Line Routing is another great time saver that automatically finds the optimum path for connectors to create the cleanest-looking drawing. Line Jumps can be toggled on or off so that Visio automatically places jumps where two lines overlap. Jumps can be set to either the vertical or horizontal lines, further enhancing consistency and the high level of presentation inherent in a Visio drawing. Once the drawing is complete, use the Page Layout feature to organize you shapes in the most logical format (for a machine anyway!) on the page.

Page Management
Visio supports dynamic page sizing which allows you to simply increase the size of the page if you find it's getting a little crowded. Hold down the Ctrl key and drag the page in the direction you need more area. Visio supports unlimited page capability. Full screen mode lets you see the drawing with out grids, toolbars or other controls.

Integration with Other Software
Visio can read flowcharting and drawing files created in other software packages such as ABC Flowcharter, Corel and AutoCAD. This facility allows you to use legacy data, protects your investment and allows you to share drawings with other individuals, departments an companies with ease.

Analysis of Process
Visio shapes are smart. They contain custom properties that allow data to be held behind each shape for analysis. Using the property reporting wizard you can easily view the total cost, duration and resources required for your process. Visual Basic for Applications provides even more programming power for behind the scenes management of graphical and non-graphical information.

If you need to flowchart then Visio Standard or Technical is an excellent choice and included in the box are many other powerful solutions for project timelining, creating organization charts, marketing diagrams, office layouts and much more.