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)

Inserting shapes between existing ones

Another useful feature in desktop Visio is the ability to drag and drop a flowchart shape onto an existing connector shape, which then automatically splits the connector in two and then reconnects the connectors to the inserted shape. This is extremely useful when a forgotten process step needs to be inserted between existing ones, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 3.28 – Inserting a shape into a connector in desktop Visio

Figure 3.28 – Inserting a shape into a connector in desktop Visio

Also, if we delete a flowchart shape that is already connected to two others, then Visio will automatically delete the last connector in the direction of the flow and reconnect the first connector.

Important note

The ability to split a connector with a shape can be toggled on/off at File | Options | Advanced | Enable Connector Splitting.

We usually do not want each Visio page to be too overwhelming with the number of shapes on it, so we often need to break down complex...