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)

Automatically highlighting unglued connectors

The Dynamic connector master can be enhanced to be displayed as a red dashed line, for example, if it is not connected at both ends.

Again, we must edit the Dynamic connector master in local Document Stencil and consider the LinePattern and LineColor cells in the Line Format section and the BegTrigger and EndTrigger cells in the Glue Info section, as in the following screenshot:

Figure 11.15 – Show unconnected lines with a red dash

Figure 11.15 – Show unconnected lines with a red dash

It is possible to check whether the connector is connected at both ends by checking that the formulas that will be automatically assigned by Visio to the BegTrigger and EndTrigger cells each evaluate to 2.

The default formula for the LinePattern cell is as follows:

=THEMEVAL("ConnectorPattern")

Visio has an ID number for each of the built-in patterns, which you can see on the Format Shape panel. So, if we want it to be dashed, which is ID = 2, we can...