Visio has long been the tool of choice for documenting processes. Ever since the introduction of workflow support in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, we have been hearing from customers, “wouldn’t it be great to visualize SharePoint workflows in Visio like flowcharts? Wouldn’t it also be great to go from Visio business process diagrams to executable workflows on SharePoint?” In Visio Premium 2010, we have partnered with the SharePoint Designer team to bring you that...

Are all the shapes in my diagram labeled? Do I have any loose connectors that are not attached to other shapes? We have heard from customers that it is often hard to answer these types of questions, especially in large diagrams. As a result, they spend a lot of time manually checking diagrams for errors. At the same time, they have to manually ensure that the different diagrams they create are visually consistent. We have also heard from companies that they want to enforce certain diagramming standards...

The video below shows how to add a Data Graphic legend to a drawing using C# code. How might you use this code within the context of constructing diagrams with Data Graphics? As mentioned in a previous blog post , Visio Professional 2010 and Visio Premium 2010 use container shapes to create legends for data graphics. Along with this new feature, the Visio 2010 Object Model includes new APIs that allow you to manipulate container shapes programmatically – including the Page.DropLegend method...

Successful Business Process Management (BPM) initiatives start with process diagrams, and the new Visio can help business analysts create great-looking, professional process diagrams fast.

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In a previous blog post, we introduced the new themes, variants, and styles feature in the new Visio. Not only does this feature make it easy and fast for users to create professional looking diagrams, it also fully supports programmatic access. This post will focus on how to use the new API methods to apply modern and vibrant looks to any diagram.

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It's easy to create beautiful, professional diagrams in Visio, but what if you need to print your drawings to review during a meeting or display as a poster? The new Visio provides a cleaner, quicker, and more streamlined printing experience. Along with the easy-to-use print tab in the backstage view, Visio now lets you print in the background so you can continue working while your diagram is printing. Read on to learn more about faster, simpler printing.

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Visio has several features that are designed to make it easy to create a diagram quickly. Here are three examples of ways to help you create a simple flowchart in under a minute. Example 1: Capture a flow quickly Let’s assume you have a pretty clear idea of what the steps are that you want to diagram and the order that you want them in, so all you need to do is capture the flow quickly. Once you drop your first shape you can use the AutoConnect feature to fill in the rest of the diagram quickly...

The new Containers feature in Visio 2010 is great for adding structure and organization to Visio diagrams. In this post, we’ll walk through the creation of one diagram, the strategy map , which is easy to make using containers. The strategy map A strategy map is a way for companies to document their primary strategic objectives. It visually shows the goals being pursued by an organization and the relationships between these goals. Commonly, a strategy map is part of the documentation associated...

A new series of training videos have been posted on Office.com to introduce Visio users to Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). The videos are packaged as a course named BPMN Diagramming Basics . The course provides both an introduction to the BPMN notation and a tutorial on creating BPMN diagrams with Visio 2010 Premium. Along the way you can see some of the other new features of Visio 2010 including Swimlanes , AutoConnect , Subprocesses , and Diagram Validation . The complete course takes...

One of the things we all do a lot is reuse shapes or groups of shapes in several places and often the best way to do that is to Copy the existing shape and Paste it elsewhere. Even though you use it daily, there may be some behavior you’re not familiar with, especially with the Copy/Paste improvements in Visio 2010. So, here is a brief summary... Where to find it Copy and Paste is available in more than one way. Depending on your normal workflow and the result you want, you may want to use...