Understanding Flowcharts in Visio 2007

What is a flowchart? In Visio terms, it’s any of several templates stored in the Flowcharts folder that you can use to create a connected diagram. Most flowcharts (also called flow sheets or flow diagrams) include text and lines that imply a process or order, but such a simple explanation doesn’t adequately express the variety of diagrams that you can create, as Figure 9-1 shows. A flowchart can schematically represent items in a structure, steps in a process, or events in a chronology. For example, you can use a flowchart to depict the sequence of operations in an accounting system, departmental interdependencies in a new process, or the steps that contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. To Visio 2007, they’re all types of information that a connected diagram, or flowchart, can convey.

Choosing a Flowchart Template

Visio 2007 includes several flowchart templates, each designed for a different purpose. Which one should you use?

• Basic Flowchart Use this template if you’re documenting a process from beginning to end or organizing information hierarchically.

• Cause And Effect Diagram Use this template to create fishbone diagrams that illustrate all the factors that result in a particular goal or problem.

• Cross-Functional Flowchart Use this template to show the interrelationship between different areas of your organization as they relate to a process.

• Audit Diagram Use this template to document accounting or bookkeeping practices.

• Total Quality Management Diagram This template creates documentation for Total Quality Management (TQM) initiatives. TQM diagrams provide a way to document policies and processes as part of an ongoing organizational effort toward improving and controlling quality.

• Work Flow Diagram Use this template to depict high-level task management. For example, you can diagram an ideal work flow that minimizes material handling costs, uses space and labor efficiently, and eliminates bottlenecks.

To start a new flowchart based on one of these templates, choose File, New, and then the appropriate solution (either Business or Flowchart), and then select the type of diagram you want to create.

The rest of this chapter describes how to create flowcharts using the Basic Flowchart, Cause And Effect, and Cross-Functional Flowchart templates. You use similar techniques to create all other flowchart types. For help getting started with other flowcharts, refer to Visio 2007 Help.

Employing Visio 2007 Improved Template View

When you open Visio 2007, you immediately notice the improved template view. There are many new features here, such as Featured Template, Recently Opened Templates, and Recent Documents, as Figure 9-2 shows.

Featured Template List

New in Visio 2007 is a Featured Templates List. Think of this as the Office team telling you, “This is what we are really proud of,” or perhaps, “Here’s what we think works best in this diagram heading.” Not all diagram headings have these lists, but the diagram headings that do are Business, Flowchart, Network, Software, and Database. The Featured Template List is graphically, and prominently, displayed in the middle of the page. If you don’t need a template from the featured template list, you can look at the other templates available in the solution under the Other Templates list.

Recent Templates

When you first open Visio 2007, in the middle of the page you see the Recent Templates. These templates are the templates that you have recently used. This can make things easy for you. You won’t need to search for the template you’ve been using, because it’s already there for you.

Recent Documents

To the right of your screen, when you first open Visio 2007 you will see the Recent Documents section. This section gives you thumbnail-size pictures of documents you have recently made and saved, which gives you easy access to them.

Additional Flowcharts and Process Diagrams in Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007

An entire industry has arisen to support business and data modeling, which encompasses a variety of theories and methodologies for streamlining business and engineering practices. Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007 provides additional flowchart templates for the following:

• For structured analysis and design using the techniques of Gane and Sarson as well as Yourdon and DeMarco, use the Data Flow Diagram template (shown in Figure 9-3). To model data flows using the Gane-Sarson DFD notation, use the Data Flow Model Diagram template in the Software folder. For details, see the section titled “Using the Data Flow Model Diagram Template” in Chapter 20, “Diagramming Software Systems.”

  Figure 9-3. Visio Professional 2007 includes templates for creating diagrams based on business and process modeling methodologies.

  

• To create charts based on the CCITT Specification and Description Language (SDL), use the SDL Diagram template. SDL is a symbol set used to specify event-driven systems. Because it can represent concurrent, real-time processes, it is widely used to represent telecommunication systems and design data communication protocols. CCITT is the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee.

• For process modeling and functional analysis based on the IDEF0 methodology, use the IDEF0 Diagram template (also shown in Figure 9-2). The IDEF0 notation is used to create function models, a graphical depiction of systems and process decomposition based on the Structured Analysis and Design Technique (SADT).

Note that although the methodologies underlying the data flow, SDL, and IDEF0 shapes impose rules for their use, Visio 2007 doesn’t check for errors with these diagram types.