Visio Reviews

We use Visio for process diagram. 

The interface is the most valuable aspect of this solution. 

My colleagues are not satisfied with this solution for many reasons. They don't see end-to-end processes or the layers of one process.

When you use a BPA solution you can open an end-to-end process in one window, go down, or go up between layers to different places. You should be able to see descriptions of the steps of the process.

Integration with third-party vendors is another aspect that needs improvement. 

I have been using Visio for three to four years. 

We don't have any stability problems. 

We have local technical support. We have an IT department and the department solves all of our problems. They contact local support if need be. 

The price will always be high. It depends on the organization size, how many processes there are, and what requirements you have for the solution. If you require additional features like analysis, it will be a different price. It's a balance between requirements and price.

My recommendation would depend on a few factors like the size of the organization. If it's a small organization and it does not have so many processes, I think Visio is a good solution. For larger organization solutions like Segnavio and Orbus would be better. Those are more complex solutions. 

I would rate Visio a six out of ten. We don't have a holistic vision of our processes so I can't open a process. If I open a process in Visio, I can't see how it's connected to other processes. 

The feature that I like the most, as simple as it may seem, is the addition of the vendor's vectors and shapes. I'm able to utilize the actual brands of our network appliances as devices to have a more accurate picture of our actual network and the server room setup.

By utilizing Visio, we have been able to put on paper our network design, server room setup, and network connections. It makes things a lot easier to troubleshoot and figure out where the issues, errors, or disconnects may be happening. This also helps when explaining to the upper management any questions in regards to our network environment.

At this point in time, it serves its purpose. I can't think of something that could be improved as of today. I'm sure there is something that can be improved, but nothing for my current needs.

I have been using Visio probably since 2008, so it has been almost 10 years now.

I, primarily, started using it in school to do basic network diagrams, but now I've used it to even draw out full floor plans for our network designs based on our building floor plan.

There were no stability issues experienced.

There were no scalability issues experienced.

I haven't requested any technical support for this tool. I'm sure it is great as I have used Microsoft Support in the past, and it has been great. So, I don't doubt that it would be the same for this product as well.

Previously, I was using PowerPoint. It was obvious why I switched over to this solution. It is the product that we needed back then when drafting the floor plans and networks.

The setup is just like any other Microsoft program, it is straightforward. Get the software, follow the prompts to install the products and it just works.

As most Microsoft products, the price is not the cheapest but you just cannot pass this tool. So when you buy it for you/your team, save money and buy only what you need. We installed it in our Techroom computer so that all the members can use and access it. Thus, one license serves the purpose of all three of us.

When using this tool, research your current vendors and manufacturers to get their most up to date shapes and vectors, so you can always design or draft your Visio projects using the most accurate picture.

It's been an extremely reliable solution for me for a very long time. It's quite mature.

If you are a knowledgeable individual, the initial setup isn't too difficult.

There are plenty of very good third-party tools.

The stability is fairly good.

The solution can scale to meet the needs of any project.

The issue I have with this solution is the same issue I have with all the products by Microsoft. They depend on many solutions by third parties for too many things, from my point of view. Maybe there should be more basic, fundamental resources incorporated into their products in general - not just this product.

A basic user may have issues trying to install the solution.

There are a lot of patches that sometimes change how one version will interact compared to another.

It would be great if, in the future, we would be able to use numerics and graphics cards. If there already this functionality, they need to make it more publicly known, as I don't see it right now.

I've been working with Microsoft products for 30 years or so. With this product, I've used it from time to time, when I've needed it. I'm not sure the exact amount of time I've spent with it over the years. It's likely much more than ten years.

The solution, for the most part, is very, very stable. There is one problem in that there are so many upgrades and patches and so on that are critical and must be applied that it makes for a few issues in terms of practical use. I was facing such a very specific problem. The project was functional in an older version, yet the same code was not functional in the newer version. Therefore, to troubleshoot, I used both older and newer versions of the software and had to acquire all the patches for both. There is no clear answer as to why the same code behaves differently within these two APIs. That's a problem. However, it's not really a stability issue.

The solution is quite scalable, and great to use for any project of any size or scope.

I only use the solution for my personal use and therefore don't have access to technical support. I can't speak to how helpful they are, or how responsive, as I do not use them. I don't have any practical experience to speak to.

That said, having dealt with Microsoft technical support in the past with other solutions, I can say that, in general, they are very capable and have many experienced people on staff to assist. I've been satisfied with them in the past on other products.

The initial setup is pretty simple and straightforward for those with knowledge or training. Basic users may have problems, however.

For myself, with so many years of experience with many types of Microsoft solutions, I found everything very straightforward.

It's not that the process isn't intuitive, it's just that, if you don't know what to do or look for, it can become a bit confusing. You must study many new terms and methodologies before you can get around to beginning the process as a completely new untrained user. There may be ways to watch videos online to learn a few tricks and to help you visualize the process.

I have many years of experience with Visio and Microsoft, therefore, I can handle the installation process myself.

I primarily use the solution myself for my own projects. I'm a customer and end-users.

In general, I would rate the solution at a six out of ten.

I would recommend this product, however, at the same time, I suggest to everybody to know and practically use several tools, so as to keep up their overall knowledge and skills. For some purposes, it is easier and more reliable to use one tool, and for other purposes, it is more reliable to use another. I do not recommend to anybody globally to work alone with one tool, separately from all the world.

I use it to create architecture diagrams. 

It serves purpose to help one get started, but it is not designed to create Modern day Data pipelines or to visualize and Manage Enterprise Architectures.

It is very easy for people to start using this tool, and we can import Visio templates that are already published by vendors such as Azure without any issue.

a) Its integration with other vendors can be better and support for other formats. For example, when we import a JPEG, we cannot customize it. Similarly, we can't utilize the BPML kind of diagrams.

b) It should natively enable importing diagrams or reference architectures from any of the vendors whose solutions are used by the customer or proposed by solution providers such as DXC

For example: AWS, GCP, VMWARE etc

We can't work in isolation in a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud world. This is a necessity.

c) The tool has to support more collaboration capabilities so that I can co-create architectures  within the organization or with my vendor partners or customers

d) As compared to some of the other vendors like Lucidchart, Visio is quite old-fashioned in terms of visual presentation. It is not up-to-date. Its visual presentation should be improved.

e) Rather than static diagrams, the tool should support API level integration  like SAP Power Designer or EA tool from SAP so that deployment of solution becomes easier.

I have been using this solution for at least five years.

I have not called their tech support. If I want to know something, I normally find YouTube videos, and I have been able to manage so far.

Its installation is easy nowadays. It is not complex.

I did the installation. 

I use Corporate subscription-based model, and the subscription is done on a yearly basis. Of course, we need internal approvals in place to get license.

It is a good tool for beginners or medium-level users. It is also good for those users who have experience in using Microsoft solutions. However, I don't consider it as an enterprise-architecture tool. It is a very generic visualization tool.

I would rate Visio a seven out of ten for its ease of use for beginners. 

We primarily use Visio as a flow chart software solution.

The application makes plotting and flowcharting very easy and very user-friendly. It is intuitive and doesn't take any time to make a complete and sophisticated flow chat from end to end. We are considering shifting completely from iGraphics to Visio Pro for office 365. I'm good in Visio, but I'm not an expert in iGraphics, so more comparison is necessary to define which solution is better.

The main feature of Visio and Autodesk that makes it attractive is that using Visio for just a week or two, people found that it's easier and more user-friendly in terms of flowcharting. The shapes library is much easier, the integration between Visio and other Microsoft Office tools is instantaneous. 

The concerns were that Visio did not have all the necessary features. In iGraphics, for example, you may add a command in the flow charts and add a note for a specific activity. When exporting it into a PDF, these notes get mentioned with the chart number so it's very easy to refer back to each note. It is a bit more efficient for reference without any extra effort. This was one of the features that they were missing in Visio.

iGraphics has a compulsory function which creates a complete reference and a complete library of all the processes related to my enterprise, my organization, in certain shapes or hierarchies. It's very handy and very easy to reference.

This is not as straightforward in Visio. Visio can compensate for this and have these processes in the same hierarchy. It is just related to collaboration. I can check the changes in the processes and models using the tracking feature.

There are not a lot of things that need to be improved in Visio from the user's perspective, but maybe some functions are missing. For example, migrating flow charts from iGraphics should be easier. When checking on some forums, some users mention data converters — so that may be a possibility. But it is not an official Microsoft solution for migrating the igx or the iGraphics flow charts to a Visio flow chart. It's a drawback, and it's a very big drawback. If we are not going to use Visio, the lack of integration would be for this reason. It's a show stopper for us right now.

The function that isn't integrated in Visio is having a share point. If I'm going share with somebody who's more knowledgeable about a particular aspect of a workflow, they have to know how to use the share point. This is a drawback. iGraphics doesn't need that. It's much easier.

More centralized integration would be desirable, but I believe that's not the direction Microsoft is taking with the product. If everybody moved to a cloud-based environment, a more centralized solution that catered to users to cut extra processes and functions, Visio would be perfect. 

In short, integration and easier migration would be beneficial.

It's very stable and has been since we implemented it.

It's easy to scale. We have not implemented permissions so that may be more complicated. 

We didn't have to use it yet. We were considering a different support contact in order to find the solution to migration.

It's easy to set up. It's all straightforward, like any Microsoft installation.

I'm not involved in the financial decisions, so I can't calculate the actual value in return on investment. However, it saves time in training.

Pricing is related to the number of Microsoft licenses being served.

iGraphics was the solution which was in place, but the support contact with iGraphics ended. Because we needed to have a new contact and iGraphics is very expensive, we started to check other solutions for the flow charts. Many were also expensive. But Visio was the most cost-effective.

I rate Visio as an eight out of ten on a very conservative scale. It is an 8 for ease of use, efficiency, and flexibility. It's not 9 of 10 because it lacks integration functions.

If you have a team that is not sophisticated or oriented to flowcharts, or if you don't have a lot of time to train these people, I guess Visio comes in handy as a very easy solution. When I started to train people on Visio, it didn't take more than two or three days. 

Even people who use iGraphics for years don't know all the features or know that they exist. 

This solution is primarily used for architecture diagramming, process flow, and process mapping. We work on engineering projects, including software development projects, and this solution is used to create proposals for customers.

Prior to using this solution, we would draw a proposed architecture in PowerPoint and submit it to the client. With Visio, I can explain it to them in a step by step manner. For example, I will take one block and go into detail about it. I can explain how the architecture works inside a block, which might include how each tier in a multitier architecture functions.

Putting details into the process flow and being able to link other objects into the diagrams are very helpful features.

I would like to be able to present diagrams in multiple ways, such as a Swimlane diagram. Also, in other products such as TIBCO Nimbus, there are links that take you to a completely different diagram.

While I can use Visio for architectural diagrams and simple process mapping, there is room for improvement. The business process mapping capability would be really improved if we could link two completely different processes together. For example, in a company with multiple departments, I would like to have links between processes in the different departments.

I would also like to be able to embed objects into diagrams that can be opened by clicking on an icon. These are things like Excel or Word documents, or a PowerPoint presentation.

Eventually, the images or icons that we use in Visio will become obsolete, and we would like to have a way of suggesting new design options.

I have not worked with various versions of the solution, but from what I can see it is pretty stable.

Because I am the direct coordinator with the customer, I am the primary user of this software in my company.

This solution would be more scalable with this inclusion of additional features.

I don't normally use technical support. Rather, I check in Quora or in the forums.

We used to create PowerPoint presentations and submit them to the customer. They were not interactive, the way Visio is.

We used TIBCO Nimbus for our business consulting projects.

I was not involved in the installation because we do not have it installed on our company servers. Rather, the clients have it installed on their machines. I just access it remotely on the customers' servers.

We did not evaluate other solutions before implementing Visio.

If you know how to use Visio and you know what you want to get as an output, then it's very helpful and easy. But, for beginners, or for anyone who wants to prepare a more informative diagram, I'm not sure if Visio is a very helpful tool. Once you have hands-on experience then it is easy to figure out.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

The primary use case for Visio involves database modeling and designing software architecture patterns. We use it to create strategic layers, business architecture, and application and technology architectures.

The most valuable aspect of Visio is enabling comprehensive coverage of architectural elements.

The platform has limitations in managing aspects like repositories. Unlike dedicated tools such as Spark Enterprise Architecture, Visio may lack the ability to create an entire architecture factory or manage repositories effectively. Additionally, they could support specifications for designing strategic layers.

We have been using Visio for ten years.

It is a stable platform.

We have around 12 Visio users in our organization.

The initial setup process is straightforward.

We deploy the product with the help of our in-house team.

We use Visio’s mapping feature for tasks related to technology architecture, emphasizing higher-level architectural patterns. It strongly supports technological elements of design for providing an efficient security architecture network. However, it is difficult to streamline the business processes using the platform.

I advise others to consider the product cost and ensure the functionality meets the business requirements. I rate it a seven out of ten.

My primary use case for Visio is network diagrams to document our local and wide area networks. We also use it from time to time to document business processes and logical systematic processes. 

Visio has helped streamline our documentation.

The most valuable feature of this product is its versatility.

An area for improvement would be the product's footprint - it's a very large install that uses many gigabytes. There are also sometimes bugs when working with documents on a network drive.

I've been using Visio for about twenty years.

Visio is very stable, and very few staff are needed for maintenance.

I don't think scalability is particularly relevant to this product as I use it.

Microsoft's basic support is very difficult to work with. However, we have recently invested in the premier support package, which is a lot more money but is actually very good.

The initial setup was fairly straightforward.

I used an in-house team for implementation.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.