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)

Working in the BPMN diagram environment

Here, we will be working with the BPMN diagram environment, which basically uses the different shapes that Visio provides. The basic UI does not differ from other Visio diagrams, so on the right-hand side, there is a drawing page in landscape (in the size you selected when you selected the template), and on the left-hand side, there is a stencil with the BPMN basic shapes.

The BPMN stencil delivers the following shapes:

Figure 4.4 – The shapes in the BPMN Basic Shapes stencil

Figure 4.4 – The shapes in the BPMN Basic Shapes stencil

The shapes in the stencil are as follows:

  • Task: Describes a task or process step
  • Gateway: Describes a branch or decision
  • Intermediate Event: An event between a Start and End event
  • End Event: An indicator that the process is ending/has ended
  • Start Event: An event that initiates the process
  • Collapsed Sub-Process: A placeholder for a full process, described somewhere else
(usually another file or page...