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)

Adding description shape data to existing master shapes

The flowchart shapes are normally labeled with a terse description of the action that is needed, but we do not have a built-in Shape Data row to enter a longer description. There is a ScreenTip available on the Insert | Text ribbon group, which can be used to add multi-line text to each shape that appears when we hover the mouse over it. However, this text does not appear in a Shape Data row, so we cannot enter this text easily in the Shape Data window, nor can we easily extract it with reports or display it in Data Graphics.

Fortunately, we can create a new Shape Data row – let’s call it Description – by using the ShapeSheet Design | Rows | Insert ribbon command, or the right-click menu’s Insert Row command within the Shape Data section, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 10.11 – Adding a Description Shape Data row

Figure 10.11 – Adding a Description Shape Data row

Notice that we have added "Description...