Visio Reviews

The primary use case of this solution is for process mapping, and to streamline simulations.

The most valuable features are process mapping and identifying responsibilities.

The design and the look and feel, need to be improved. Also, the pricing can be improved for organizations.

In the next release, I would like to see simulations capabilities and artificial intelligence included.

I have been using this solution for many years.

This solution is stable, we have not experienced any issues.

It's a scalable product.

Technical support is good.

The price is reasonable for individual use but for an organization, the costs is high.

There is an annual licensing fee.

It's a good product and I can recommend Visio to others.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Documenting the enterprise architecture.

Helps us to quickly visualize the architecture.

The ability to draw models quickly.

I would like to see traceability. It doesn't have it. You cannot find one object amongst several sheets of Visio diagrams.

The stability is good. It's stable.

I find that it's very scalable from a small organization to a large organization.

To determine what product or solution you're looking for, talk to many vendors and get their opinions.

The most important criterion, for me, when selecting a vendor, is customer service.

I would rate Visio at seven out of 10 but I would give it a 10 if it had traceability.

I use this solution as a graphic design tool for breaking down a flow or process. I'm a systems engineer and customer of Visio.

I like the fact that as you drag and move things around, everything keeps track of each of its connections. So you don't have to be bothered by mechanics of connecting things again in the right place. It just follows on. It's also a good diagramming tool.

I've had a variety of issues, usually related to the system architecture. It's almost like a general purpose tool but it's important to understand the interfaces and the components and how they're related to each other. It would be helpful if you could layer things easily for the diagrams so you can decompose a given object and see it both at the macro and at the breakout level and still have those kinds of connections would remain. 

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

I would highlight BPMN 2.0 validation, as it eases the standardization of the Business Process Model within multi-disciplinary teams. Visio integrates seamlessly with the rest of the Office suite as any other Microsoft product, which is also worth mentioning.

Compared to other products we used in the past, modelling with Visio is faster and the final result in terms of appearance is more professional. Making changes to a diagram is also easier as the items and lines get re-arranged properly with few tweaks required.

It would be nice to have the possibility of exporting and importing XPDL, also considering that the Surface series are the MS flagship, there is much room for improvement when it comes to inking or drawing diagrams using pen input (which behaves like a mouse pointer).

XPDL stands for XML Process Definition Language, it is used to interchange business process model definitions between different workflow modelling tools. (e.g. Oracle Fusion Middleware)

Currently, MS Visio does not support import or export of XPDL files. Although some tools like Oracle Fusion have built in support for Visio files, I personally think this capability would be nice to have as would help companies using workflow tools modelling with Visio. As an example, the project I am working for right now uses Vitria Businessware which supports XPDL import, however as Visio does not have XPDL export capability workflows have to be created manually increasing the time to market.

WRT inking and pen input support; Microsoft Surface series lovely integrate with the MS Office suit with a functionality that allows the user to write on top of documents as if it were a printed copy just by using the pen on the screen. This functionality supports ink to shapes which transforms handwritten squares or circles into perfectly drawn shapes. This is not the case in Visio where pen support is non-existent and using it on the screen just emulates the mouse. This is just disappointing as the functionality is there for programs like Word but it is completely missing on Visio.

I’ve been using this tool for three years.

The product is pretty stable. We stumbled upon some bugs during these years of intense usage, but nothing major that couldn’t be solved by restarting the application.

This product is a desktop application, but coupled with SharePoint, it allows for concurrent editing of files without any issues.

We’ve never had to use the technical support for this product.

We started using Dia (free open source drawing editor) but we required a more fast and collaborative tool with better MS Word integration and better appearance.

The initial setup was as simple as installing any other MS office product.

Pricing and licensing depends on your needs and the time you expect to use the product. If you plan to use it for an extended period of time, Visio has two versions Standard and Professional where the Professional costs almost twice as the Standard edition with few more stencils and functionalities, but on the other hand Microsoft also offers the 365 option with one year commitment where you can use Visio Professional for almost three years before hitting the single license price.

We explored Lucidchart and Sparx Enterprise Architect as alternatives.

I would recommend anyone looking into purchasing this product to review thoroughly each version features as both are quite similar.

We use Visio for describing processes, port authorities, requests, exchange of documents, and authorizations. The main use is for business processes and descriptions.

It is easy to use.

The user interface could be simplified and easier to use.

I have been using Visio for a couple of years.

It's a stable solution.

This is an area that we did not explore as it was not necessary for us to scale. It was not a requirement.

We had 10 customers using this solution.

We don't have plans to increase our usage. I am with a different company.

Technical support was fine. I did not have any issues with the technical support.

Before Visio, we used Bizagi.

The initial setup was straightforward. It was easy to install.

We implemented this solution ourselves. We did not use an integrator.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate Visio an eight out of ten.

The primary use case is modeling architecture requirements.

The most valuable features are ease of use and flexibility.

One of the things that I like is the automation from external data.

The user interface is fine.

I would like to see better integration with external data sources.

Sharing work with colleagues is sometimes an issue with this product.

I would like to see integration with Microsoft Teams.

I have been using Visio for the past fifteen years.

Visio is a very stable product.

Given that it's a desktop application, you can't scale it. You can't do much and sometimes, sharing is an issue.

I have never used technical support.

They do have lots of videos and everything is available online.

As it is a Microsoft product, the installation is easy.

The yearly cost is approximately $400 CAD ($300 USD). 

My advice for anybody who is implementing Visio is to establish the right templates for your project. Templating the models is very important so that everybody has the same ones.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Valuable features for me include the different chart options and the ease of building them up.

It was very useful for the high level and detailed design phases of my projects.

There are some performance issues on a different operating system which could be improved.

I have been using the product for three years. It is used, mostly, for design phases.

The product is very stable.

The product is highly scalable for the design.

Not applicable.

It is very easy to install. You just need to get the Microsoft license.

This is great software for designing workflows for the HLD and DLD phases of the project.

We do not use the latest version. 

I am a network engineer and we use the solution for drawing network diagrams. 

I like the solution's ease of use and its the integration with different templates from a variety of manufacturers.

The solution should have better integration capabilities with MacOS and Linux.

We have been using Visio since 2010.

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

We have never contacted technical support concerning Microsoft Visio. 

The solution is easy to install. It took, perhaps, 15 minutes. 

One can do installation on his own. 

Just a single manager is responsible for the deployment. 

There is a licensing fee, but it is fairly priced. It is on a monthly basis. 

We did not evaluate other options before going with the solution. 

There are five people, network engineers, who use the solution in my organization. 

I would recommend it to others. 

I rate Visio as a ten out of ten.