how powerful is visio?

Started by goltoof, May 12, 2011, 05:04:53 PM

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goltoof

We are a manufacturing company where I'm responsible for creating/managing templates and shape stencils as well as generating data sheets and documentation.  To this point, everyone has been using their own software to do their own things.  Now we're at the point where everyone can effectively use the same platform for creating a wide variety of documents. Consequently people are starting to see just how powerful and versatile this software is.  It makes me wonder how we can integrate it into each department, Now we mainly use it for making data sheets and flow diagrams, but I've done things for sales, inventory, manufacturing even marketing (brochures, etc) all within Visio!

What do you use Visio for in your business and how do you go about operations pertaining to Visio?  How have you utilized the software for different departments?  How spent customized and tailored it to your organization?  

cliff50

I find it to be a very versatile product. I work in a large organisation ( excess 10 000 people) We use it to document transactions across the company.
The visio product is used as a GUI to analyse a database that it attaches to.
The data is mission critical to the organisation and commercially sensitive.
We deliver the custom made composition (Visio and Database) to our clients via a central server.
Changes are made by using synchronised database control.

How powerful you ask?
I would say extremely powerful, it has nearly got me sacked on several occasions in the last 5 months and if it weren't for the fact I am the only one that knows the password  I would be selling apples on a street corner now.  ;D

Jumpy

I like it that Visio is so versatile. You can work with it in many fields.
Naturally in any field there is always a programm, that is better for that field, more spezialized, but that spezialisation limits that product to that one field.

Example: There are many CAD-Programs better than Visio, but you can't make UML-Diagrams with them, or projekmanagment, or...

YossiD

I am in a position not too different from yours. I work for a company that designs and manufactures rugged computers and I'm responsible for all documentation that has to be presentable (design, testing, marketing, and some production). It is rare that I release a document that has no Visio content at all.

I use Visio for:
* Org charts
* Flowcharts
* Block diagrams
* Testing setup diagrams
* Sketches
* Simple circuit diagrams
* Process flow diagram
* Simple graphs

While there are some things in Visio that I find infuriating, all in all it is a very powerful tool. There may be better programs for each type of diagram, but I doubt there's a better all-in-one.

I have created many of my own shapes, and even added functionality to some of them using formulae in the ShapeSheets (with some help from the gurus on this forum).

Visio also had good import capabilities, so you can add all kinds of other graphics to diagrams. I have even extracted graphics from PDF files using Inkscape to convert them to SVG graphics and then importing into Visio.

mike.smith

#4
Visio is really very powerful advanced diagramming software that I have come across till date. Visio 2010 can be used in multiple areas. In my organization, we use Visio for following:
- Flowchart
- Business process diagramming
- Create and monitor process performance
- Sharing data-linked diagrams
- For network planning
- Simple graphs

Visio is also helpful for creating ER, UML & other IT diagrams.