Visio® 2007 Bible

Chapter 15. Building Visio Flowcharts

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Exploring flowchart templates

• Adding and connecting flowchart shapes

• Making changes to flowcharts

• Enhancing the appearance of flowcharts

• Creating flowcharts that span multiple pages

All kinds of human endeavors proceed in a sequence or flow, such as the steps in a customer support procedure, the accumulation of information and change of responsibility during a change management process, or the movement of material through a manufacturing environment. Whether you are documenting business procedures and processes, analyzing the flow of data for a business re-engineering initiative, or showing the interaction of systems or departments, Visio flowchart templates help illustrate those relationships and connections.

Visio includes templates for building basic flowcharts with simple geometric shapes and arrows, which are all you need for many step-by-step procedures, checklists, sequences, and so on. But the program also offers specialized flowcharts for business process analysis, quality management, risk management, and other organizational initiatives. Even organization charts and project schedules incorporate the connections characteristic of flowcharts. Although Visio provides templates and shapes for specialized methodologies such as SDL and IDEF0, it doesn't provide tools to ensure that you construct your flowcharts in accordance with the rules of those methodologies.

Because flowcharts satisfy a broad range of uses and industries, flowchart ...