Book Image

Visualize Complex Processes with Microsoft Visio

By : David J Parker, Šenaj Lelić
Book Image

Visualize Complex Processes with Microsoft Visio

By: David J Parker, Šenaj Lelić

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)

Determining who and what with a functional flow diagram

This phase examines each of the interactions between the external actors, such as the author, and simply shows what happens between the external and internal actors during the logical flows labeled in the context diagram. This should be validated by the stakeholders before proceeding to a more detailed analysis of the interactions between all of the actors. In this example, the chapters for this book pass through the preliminary draft between the author and senior editor, and then the final draft stage through the project coordinator and technical reviewers. The latter phase is analyzed in the following diagram:

Figure 1.8 – A typical functional flow diagram

Figure 1.8 – A typical functional flow diagram

Each actor is a labeled ellipse, and the interactions are directional, labeled arrows. Multiple actions between the same actors, in the same direction, can be added to the label of a single arrow, rather than adding more arrows.

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