Visio Reviews

I like to use Visio because it gives me a quick view of the things I had to put in a model for a company. I don't use it as an interface, though.

Something that needs to improve is the interface interaction with other tools.

The program is very stable. I've had no issues with it.

The solution is scalable.

I don't use technical support. I only use the documentations, the scheme and the use of the symbols.

When I work at companies, they've already installed and prepared the program for me. So I never have to install it for myself.

I would recommend this solution to others because it gives you a quick view. You can demonstrate in a short period what you want from the managers. Sometimes, however, the program is not compatible with some protocol standards, like ArchiMate. So I would like to see a better interface in the future. On a scale from one to 10, I rate Visio a seven.

Our primary use case for Visio revolves around business process re-engineering, as-is process, to-be-processed, and then time and motion study, value stream mapping, and in collaboration with everything together.

Visio has improved our organization through an essential collaboration with the other Microsoft applications like SharePoint and Excel. In the earlier days, what used to happen was that a majority of the organization captured all the as-is processes, the time and motion data in the form of Excel and then they used to create process diagrams using other freeware applications. However, collaboration allows easy and convenient sharing with other stakeholders, that is really helpful with Visio.

The features I find most valuable are the integration with the other Microsoft applications, specifically Excel.

The one particular thing which I would like to see improved is in comparison to other products in the market, and is still lacking in Visio, is publishing on a web application. For example, there is a freeware application business process modeling tool, Bizagi. This tool has a very good interface. It also provides visibility allowing users to publish on SharePoint directly. Then the entire product gets converted into an HTML format which provides a one-click on all the attributes of every task, a detailed description, direct visibility, which I find is still lacking in Visio.

An additional feature I would like to see included in the next release is the implementation of web publishing. For example, for any task or any flowchart diagram that I create, example "talk to the customer." Now using "talk to the customer," return adding attribute like "this is a step-by-step document file that you should follow" or "these are the setup questions that you should follow while talking to a customer."

These documents can be attached to that specific task, and when I submit this on the web, users will get all the description, along with the attachment.

As far as the stability of the solution I think it still needs to grow up when it comes to the interface usage.

My impressions of the scalability of this solution on a scale of one to five I would rate the scalability a 3.5, with five being the highest.

I know of 50 users working with this tool. Some of them are engineers. For the people who are not technically sound, for them, they find Visio quite complicated so they try to avoid using it. That is still where Visio needs to grow. In terms of user interaction, UX, and user interface. There is some obstructive complexity. 

I did use previous solutions, like as I mentioned one of them was Bizagi Modeler, which is growing in the market. Currently, I'm using IBM Blue.

The reason why there was a switch from Microsoft Visio was because of the user interface and easiness to UX. It's a complete BPMN solution, however, Visio can be used for multiple purposes. Now depending on the kind of audience, it was quite easy for them to use Bizagi Modeler. That's the reason why I introduced Bizagi Modeler in my organization. 

After switching organizations, I've found that Microsoft Visio was quite challenging and a little too complicated for the users. Irrespective of understanding the complete utilization and the power of the tool, people are switching to different solutions, so we were using IBM Blueworks.

The initial setup was straightforward. It's quite easy. I worked on a couple of projects which took two or three months to complete because they required extensive organizational level detail, like from top to bottom. Using Visio, it's quite easy and I like it.

The IT team takes care of the installation and deployment of Visio.

Before choosing I did a market evaluation. I performed a needs evaluation as the first step in our market evaluation. We considered what kind of solution we wanted and if it was okay to go with a freeware solution or is it right to go with the licensed software. Initially, we were Microsoft Platinum Partners, so that's why we had Microsoft Visio well established in our organization. However, again, when it comes to the kind of usage and along with the maturity of the process that we had, it was a simple move from my end because you're paying for a license and if you do not use the overall potential of it, including the user interface, I think it's not worth to pay for those applications.

The only additional advice I would give, Visio is one very powerful tool in the market. Not just the application, but also its effectiveness to collaborate with other applications. Everyone is using Microsoft applications; it's how you work across platforms, and this collaboration makes life easy.

The individual applications have a lot of functions an features that's the reason why each of these applications is quite complex. You need to understand the functions before getting the full value of this tool.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with ten being the best I would rate this product an eight-over ten because it's a tool what works in collaboration with other applications very well. I'm deducting two marks because it's still complicated for the very generic user. The solution should be developed with a variety of end users in mind. It needs to be user-friendly and easier to use for all different kinds of users and user experience levels.

Without this product, I would struggle to do my work. That is as a business analyst. I use it to develop all of my processes.

I have no issues with Visio from an end-user perspective. It is our environment. It's not utilized by too many users, about three or four end-users every week now.

I enjoy the fact that I can go into detail with Visio. In shared communications, I can inspect for any fault in my processes. That's what I enjoy the most.

Transferring data was one of the issues that I expected Visio to have resolved. I use the older version. I'm not sure if the later versions have already addressed some of the issues.  

To improve Visio, make it easier to transfer into other Microsoft products. For example, if I copy a Visio diagram into Word. If I open it in the Word version, it doesn't work so well. 

Visio's stability is the best I've ever used. I compare it with other tools that are out there. There's some competing software that has a lot of features. I am very happy with the stability of this application.

I'm sure Visio is very scalable. From my personal use, I've had absolutely no issues with scalability. I'm able to go on and develop complex processes. 

I haven't, fortunately, had to engage with Visio's technical support.

Some people prefer to use Flow. Some people prefer to use Draw.io. I also used Draw.io a little bit and found it tedious to use. It is not as user-friendly and I found my way back to using Visio.

The installation was straightforward.

It was a couple of in-house IT guys that came over to do the installation.

I would tell somebody considering this solution to understand why you want to use the product in the first place and have a clear understanding of what your goals are. What would you like to achieve with having that product? Ensure that the goals are measurable, then implement.

I would rate Visio a seven or an eight. 

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.

Process modeling. 

It's not easy to share and modify by colleagues.

Drawing BPMN diagrams.

Sharing, and add timing features.

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.

• We design architectural and business flows for web/eCommerce and ERP systems. 
• We design web architectures, UML, and ERD.

Its ability to visualize complex data and process flows. We can easily add templates to SharePoint for collaboration.

The diagramming and swimlane features allow for separating business functions. Also, the web page architecture helps.

• It needs hyperlinked or narratives for page flows to make demos more effective.
• It could use easier custom icon sets.