Book Image

Visualize Complex Processes with Microsoft Visio

By : David Parker, Senaj Lelic
Book Image

Visualize Complex Processes with Microsoft Visio

By: David Parker, Senaj Lelic

Overview of this book

Every business has process flows, but not all of them are fully described to or verified for accuracy with each stakeholder. This not only presents a risk for business continuity but also removes the ability to make insightful improvements. To make these complex interactions easy to grasp, it’s important to describe these processes visually using symbology that everybody understands. Different parts of these flows should be collaboratively developed and stored securely as commercial collateral. Visualize Complex Processes with Microsoft Visio helps you understand why it is crucial to use a common, systematic approach to document the steps needed to meet each business requirement. This book explores the various process flow templates available in each edition of Microsoft Visio, including BPMN. It also shows you how to use them effectively with the help of tips and techniques and examples to reduce the time required for creating them, as well as how you can improve their integration and presentation. By the end of this book, you’ll have mastered the skills needed to create data-integrated business flowcharts with Microsoft Visio, learned how to effectively use these diagrams collaboratively, but securely, and understood how to integrate them with other M365 apps, including Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Power Automate.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)

Relating shapes to each other

There is a Line option in the Insert or Home | Draw Shape drop-down menus in the browser edition. Although this can be used to glue to shapes and connection points, the line does not have the same capabilities as the connector line drawn by the AutoConnect arrow because it does not have any automatic routing capabilities, nor does its text box have a control handle to reposition it. The text rotates with the line rather than staying horizontal. For these reasons, it is always best to use the AutoConnect arrow to make connections between flowchart shapes because it will create an instance of the dynamic connector master shape. We can also use the Home | Tools | Connector or Insert | Diagram Parts | Connector commands in Visio desktop to create a connector between two shapes, which also uses the dynamic connector master:

Figure 3.9 – The Visio web Draw Shape menu and the Visio desktop Tools and Diagram Parts groups

Figure 3.9 – The Visio web Draw Shape menu and the Visio desktop Tools and Diagram Parts groups

So...