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)

Creating process diagrams automatically from data in Visio for Desktop

We have now learned about the Visio Data Visualizer add-in for Excel, but it is only one small part of the Data Visualizer tool. It can also be used to create separate Visio and Excel documents that can be synchronized with each other.

In fact, if we have Visio Plan 2 installed, we can start Data Visualizer from either Visio, shown on the left, or Excel, shown on the right in the following screenshots:

Figure 5.11 – The Data Visualizer templates with the Excel icon in the top left

Figure 5.11 – The Data Visualizer templates with the Excel icon in the top left

If we click one of the Visio templates, such as Cross-Functional Flowchart – Data Visualizer, then we will be offered a button to start a new Excel workbook from one of the templates that would be opened from Excel.

Understanding and editing the Data Visualizer Excel workbook

The Excel template workbook displays four tabs, but there is also a hidden one that is used for a lookup:

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