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)

Working with swimlanes and separators

The Cross-Functional Flowchart template, available in all editions of Visio except Visio in M365, provides a couple of swimlane shapes displayed horizontally by default. The orientation can be changed to vertical via the Cross-Functional Flowchart ribbon menu.

This template opens the Cross-Functional Flowchart Shapes stencil in addition to the Basic Flowchart Shapes stencil. This stencil contains horizontal and vertical versions of the Swimlane and Separator master shapes.

Swimlanes should be labeled with the actor responsible for process steps within it, and more swimlanes can be added.

Adding a swimlane to a cross-functional flowchart

There are two ways of adding another swimlane in Visio online. The first is as follows:

  1. Select a swimlane, usually best done on the header, that you want to insert a new swimlane after. If you just want to add one at the end, then don’t select anything.
  2. Click the Cross-Functional Flowchart...