Visio Reviews

I'm the business process manager and we are customers of Visio. 

The process modeling is a valuable feature for us.

The solution could include better modeling and an interface with workflow capability, better integration would make the Visio to Power Automate connection a lot better. I'd like to see a feature that would enable the creation of a library of process models that could be linked to roles within the organization.

I've been using this solution for ten years. 

The solution is very stable. 

I think licensing costs are reasonable. 

If you're looking for a business process modeling tool, there are other options out there designed with that in mind. Visio is a good general diagram tool, but not specifically for business process management.

I rate Visio eight out of 10. 

I use Visio for diagramming configurations.

It has improved the way my organization functions because diagramming is almost similar to mind-mapping. It's a good way to get the message across and for people to understand at all levels.

Just the fact that a majority of the industry uses it, and you've got third-party templates that were created. All my vendors have templates for their products and services. It's also easy to use Visio.

I would help if they had something like a Microsoft Viewer. They also need to make this available across other platforms and not just Windows.

It would also be nice to have a portal within the product, with some agreement with third parties to get those templates through the Microsoft project portal and not have to go out there and spend time locating the templates. 

The only downside to Visio is the learning curve. Nobody off the street can pick it up that quick, and they have to learn it. They need to get some training, some tutorials, which applies to just about anything these days.

I have been using Visio for more than 15 years. 

Visio is a stable solution.

If they allowed cloud deployments, you could scale it laterally or vertically.

The initial setup is a lengthy process, but it's easy to install. But you have to import your templates, depending on whether you want to use generic ones or specific ones.

I think costs are on a per user basis.

I would advise potential users of Visio to explore the third-party templates and not limit themselves to what is provided because it's not enough.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Visio an eight.

I find it really easy to use. 

You can customize the process very easy. 

You can also communicate with people ad they don't even need to have the tool. They can see the processes on the internet which makes it easy to collaborate with people that don't actually choose to use the tool. 

It's easy to use generally, due to the fact that it's really basic. 

It has also a lot of Planteria, I know how to paint in it, however, you can use different samples, depending on the structures that you want to draw. It has a lot of possiblities.

I'm working with Visio Plan 2. I find some lags on this tool. For example, I cannot manage the attributes. For example, for each figure of the process map, I cannot add any further information about it. I can't add the activity or the role that I'm using to relate to other activities. It is very limited by the information that I can use. Managing data is quite limited.

I would love to see five samples for each attempt that I include in my process. I would like to be able to add some extra information. For example, to be able to add some attributes for each item. 

To be able to extract a report for business project management notations would be ideal. Another solution, ARIS, lets you configure each item that you add to the Visio model process, and you can add some attributes that we cannot currently add. For example, calls to activity, main indicators, or a lot of descriptions, etc.

After that, to be able to export a report that shows the relation between the functions and the roles that you have related would be great. If it were possible to see different functions for each role and export it, that would be ideal.

I've been using the solution for a very, very long time. It's been about ten to eleven years at this point. 

The solution is quite stable. We haven't had any issues in that respect. It doesn't crash or freeze and it's not buggy or have glitches.

I haven't needed to reach out to technical support the entire time I've used the product. It's very basic and very simple, and therefore I've never run into any issues I haven't been able to deal with personally.

I'm actually currently looking into different options as I am finding Visio's capabilities a bit dated and limiting.

I'm just a customer. I don't have a business relationship with Visio.

For how I use the solution, it's quite good and does what I need it to do. It's unique in terms of drawing processes. That said, it is getting a little bit old. There are other solutions out there that offer many more functionalities and users can work with more information on them. That's really useful. Visio, on the other hand, doesn't have the same kind of capabilities.

That's why I'm currently looking for another application to use. I want to be able to export more information from the business process management notations. Visio could potentially improve on this, and, if they don't I will have to look elsewhere for a solution that can handle this.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a six out of ten due to its general limitations at this point.

I'm into designing, so I'm using Visio for creating diagrams. Mostly it's for network, architecture, or data flow diagrams, depending on what the customers need.

What I like best about Visio is that it's flexible.

Sometimes, if I need to draw quickly, I use Microsoft PowerPoint, but if I need icons, which Visio has, I use Visio.

I also like that the solution gives me a much more powerful range of options.

The improvement I want to see in Visio is being able to edit it more quickly, particularly when pulling it out of another software and then editing it on that non-Visio software. Currently, the process affects the overall performance because it's not as quick as I want it to be.

If I were to add a new feature in Visio, and if I went wild, it's the feature of creating new diagrams from Visio, even if I'm on another document. If Visio is running in the background while I have another document open, it would be interesting to be able to draw diagrams on that document.

I've been using Visio for a few years now.

I didn't contact the Visio technical support team, and from what I know, the IT team didn't have to contact support either. Once, there was a bug, and the IT team couldn't do the installation until the next day, but even then, there was no need to contact the Visio support team. As a product, it's intuitive.

Setting up Visio is easy because you just need to check the block, click, and then it'll be set up, but that's because my company uses Microsoft 365. Setup-wise, I'm rating it as eight out of ten.

I'm not involved in the licensing of Visio for my company. However, for Visio licenses for my customers, I am.

Around fifty people use Visio within my company.

People in the company use Visio whenever necessary, but I use it more frequently. I talk to customers a lot, and I'm part of the sales process, which means I need to create diagrams, so I use Visio a few times a week. My usage is usually greater than other developers in my company.

I don't have any particular advice for people who want to use the solution, but Visio is a user-friendly product and easy to use.

My rating for Visio is eight out of ten because it's a good product.

My company is a Microsoft user.

I usually use Visio for really high-level conceptual modeling. Ironically, this works well with iServer. But, I use Visio for conceptual modeling since it makes it easy to draw things and is not as strict. This is because, at the conceptual level, one is not properly familiar with the details or constraints. This way, a business person would be able to critique something as being incorrect or not linked or drawn properly.

Visio makes it easier than with other tools to do such tasks as changing things or coming up with one's own visual style for presentation purposes. Mostly, the solution is employed for presentations made to business people, with the aim of facilitating their understanding of the design one wishes to use. Due to its greater flexibility when it comes to how things are joined together with lines, it is possible to put things together that would not work in a physical environment. This reduced constraint is good, as it allows one to initially familiarize himself with his system and ask the appropriate questions for which he may not have answers at the moment. At the minimum, this allows a person to put something up for critique in the event that it is incorrect.

The automated tools exist for making the computer do the dumb stuff. It may be worth going out to the market to see the sort of things people are trying to obtain. The solution integrates well with other tools and one can bring Visio diagrams into Word. Once in Word, a person can open the diagram for editing purposes if need be and then close it again and keep it in Word. So, all the integration capabilities with the other Office products is great. I can't think of much that I wish to add to the solution.

When creating a database, more stringency is required, as the computer is really dumb. A person is a lot more constrained, much more so when using the actual database creation tool, such as erwin Data Modeler. So the solution's flexibility can be perceived as both a strength and a weakness.

Visio is a general modeling tool, which encourages so many things beyond the use of mere data models. I think it's pretty good. Years back, when we first saw Visio being used with social security, the solution promoted itself as the missing piece. Word, Excel and Outlook were available. There was actually a piece missing where they stuck on the Windows logo.

In the late '90s or early 2000s it was possible to buy Visio with and without Office. They then removed this capability. Nowadays, one can obtain 365 but, with Visio, the component must be bought separately. The issue exists more with the purchasing and it would be nice to have it included as a standard feature. I believe they've now checked in Power BI as a standard component with Office, but Visio has so many more uses, since business people can use it to do swimlanes. Regular people and not just those with a technical background can use it for so much more. It should just be part of the enterprise or the professional version of Office. That's what I'd say. It's just so damn useful.

One of the things that was removed prior to it getting spun out was an enterprise version of Visio which could be set up, kicked off and actually go through one's network to ping everything that was attached to it, including printers, routers, PCs, laptops, et cetera. It would then bring all that information back and write a network diagram itself of all of those things. I thought that was a pretty cool part of the product. I'm not sure whether people now have network tools that do the same thing and that's why it's not used anymore. But, it was nice to see this sort of automation.

I have been using Visio since it came out in 1995 or 1996. 

The solution seems to be pretty stable, because I've opened models that I wrote 20 years ago and it still reads them without incurring frequent crashes. I did something flaky the other day which it didn't like. I don't know whether that was because it was going through a virtual machine and have yet to track down what the core issue was. However, overall, things have been pretty stable.

When it comes to scalability, I suppose that Visio is like any other product. One of the drawbacks of any Office product is its design for a single person. There exist ones on the web which allow for online editing in Excel, but many of the features I use do not exist in this version. This is a pain point.

We are talking about a one-person product, but the fact that you can print it off as a PDF and share it with others is a good feature of it. Visio differs from a real modeling tool, an expensive one such as, say... erwin Data Modeler, in that the latter has its own repository for storing models, which another person can access and use for modifying the relevant model. The model can be split into an overall one and a subject area. This way, two people can work in different subject areas. As long as two people are not working on the exact same object they will avoid stepping on each other's toes. Visio is akin to any other Office products, in that it involves a single person at a time per document.

I don't believe I have ever had to contact technical support to get the solution to work. We usually look up things on the internet. For most Microsoft products the help is not too bad. The last time I had to contact Microsoft support was years ago, concerning flowcharts, I believe.

For any issues involving the local installation I would contact our own infrastructure team. This said, I don't believe I have ever had to go out with an actual bug in the product.

I am not involved with the infrastructure side, but my understanding is that the initial setup was relatively straightforward. I had to put in a purchase order when I started this new role, but obtained access to the tool pretty quickly. I'm assuming that it is similar to other Microsoft products, in that there is a standard implementation, with the IT people having a fixed method of configuration, as with other Office products, which are rolled out.

When it comes to the setup, I have a couple of what are referred to as stencils, which are the things on the side that can be used for creating one's own series of diagrams or its components. I have a couple of these which I reuse. This is the only thing worth mentioning were one setting it up from scratch. But, many of the standard objects are pretty good and extensive. As such, the setup is not too difficult. Neither is it difficult to create one's own look and feel. So, it's pretty good.

I believe Visio to be priced pretty reasonably. Erwin Data Modeler may be a bit on the pricey side nowadays. When it was spun off from Computer Associates, they did so as a separate product and someone else bought it. I seem to recall at the time that the price either doubled or trebled, although I don't remember the reason for this. It was not clear to me what extra value was being offered for the price. Likely, the sole problem with erwin Data Modeler is that the price point is a tad on the high side. It can make selling to clients challenging and they are generally put off by the price.

Probably, it would have been better if erwin Data Modeler was the introduction to the environment whose creation is being attempted, meaning the DI suite and all the other parts involved in the governance, their glossary and all the bits and pieces. As the first taste is always free, it might've been better to have erwin Data Modeler at a lower price point. Once a person has obtained this product he would likely feel compelled to buy the other tools that work with it, rather than attempting to obtain something which does not. This would allow one to lower his price for the initial tool and then charge a bit more for those that nobody else has in their possession, such as one's involving data governance. This said, I'm not really involved in sales or marketing, so what I say should be taken with a grain of salt.

Visio is really good for high-level presentations but, when it comes to much more lower-level tasks, the best I've found so far is erwin Data Modeler and the DI, the governance suite that they've put out more recently. I've also worked with Oracle Data Modeler. One can't argue with the price on that one since it is free and presents no issues if money is lacking for other expenditures. If a person can do the drawings and present something to people then he can actually generate databases out of it, which is what one's end game is supposed to be anyway. It's not as pretty and it's a little bit more fiddly to do when things start to get complicated.

When I first started, everything was on-premises, although I do not recall if it switched to Azure at a later point. I believe I used it in 365. I am pretty sure the later ones are part of Office 365 or appear as add-ons, as they are not included.

My advice is that a person first work out what he wishes to use the tool for, to see if it suits his needs. While it's great for presenting information to people, it is not as good in the end when it comes to actually trying to build a product out of it. Of primary importance is that the person come up with his own look and feel for the organization, with a focus on business oriented issues rather than those of a technical nature. This would entail coming up with one's own color scheme or design and then remaining consistent in this domain. It is helpful to present to business people in a format with which they are familiar.

As the product will pretty much do what one wishes, which is nice, the focus should remain more on the presenting side rather than on its use. Certain products pose a challenge when it comes to getting them to comply with one's wishes, but Visio is a bit easier in this regard.

As a presentation tool and a high-level design tool, I rate Visio at least a nine out of ten.

I analyze and model processes for optimization. We are customers of Visio and I'm a founder of the company, working as a process consultant.

It's a very agile product because I can map and model a process extremely quickly. It's user friendly and there are a lot of templates I can use that are really useful. I like very much that I can publish the different models I've created with my clients and they can view the entire process, it's really useful. It provides a lot of advantages because you can see the inefficiencies visually, and it's really easy to analyze and to detect different inefficiencies in order to improve the process.

I'd like to be able to extract different data from different relations between the objects I create and I'd like the ability to analyze the different relations between activities, positions and roles. Visio can't give me this functionality. I would also like to be able to introduce more information in each object. For example, to include some codes or name or description of the activity, to be able to introduce more data in the object. To have this information in the objects would be great. 

I've been using this solution for six months.

This is a stable solution. 

From my clients' perspective, it's really scalable. It can be used in any type of company. I think it's really useful for any person that is working for a company with a wide range of processes. I'm the only person in my company who uses it and I'll continue to do so because it's so user friendly. 

I used Aris for a short period of time several years ago. It was a good experience but a more expensive solution. I'm evaluating it again and depending on the conditions the company offers, I might start using it again. I can keep using Visio even if I start using Aris as well.

The initial setup is very easy. With 365 it's very fast. It's good. I think I was able to deploy in 30 minutes. I did it myself although I was in contact with the chat bot at the beginning to ask some questions.

I pay a monthly fee to Visio.

I would recommend the product and I think it's very useful for any person that works in a company where you need to visualize the process you work in and to analyze ways of improving. 

I would rate this solution more highly if it was easier to extract data but for now I rate Visio an eight out of 10. 

• Network diagrams tools
• Flow charts

• Offers a wide range of diagramming tools.
• Being able to visualize an architecture for a network solution.
• Map a business process.
• Document fitout of a rack solution for on-premise.
• It allows the accurate recording and disseminating of information.

Importing templates can sometimes be a bit hit and miss.

More than five years

No, the product is quite straightforward to deploy.

Earlier versions would occasionally lock up, but recent editions have significantly improved performance.

I haven't pushed the limits of Visio. For what I have used it for, it has been able to handle everything I've thrown at it.

We've not had any need to raise a support issue in relation to Visio.

I can't comment on technical support for Visio. I haven't had to make any support tickets regarding it.

I used some basic open source drawing programs in the past, and came across Visio whilst looking to purchase Microsoft Office some years ago. I found it did everything I needed and never looked at anything else since.

Very straightforward.

In-house

Best way to express ROI for Visio would be the quick and consistent documentation that it helps create, provided that the product is used consistently for diagramming.

Just license alongside Office 365, the monthly fee is always up-to-date

No.

Does what it says on the tin, produces very nice standardized diagrams, and has some very powerful tools.

I find the library of shapes very helpful. I do appreciate that shapes are tied to various templates because it makes it easier/quicker to complete a diagram when the type of diagram you choose automatically loads the shapes that are tied to it. I frequently load additional shapes into the program to keep my diagrams fresh and promote a certain type of individuality to my designs.

We have used this solution since 2009.

The first thing that comes to mind is the layering feature of the software. It is not easy to work with and definitely needs some revisions to help users modify/control the layers easier. Even after all the years I have used this software program, I still have issues with the layering aspect and features. The reason it’s not a 10, is because when I first began learning how to use this program, I found it very difficult and not very user-friendly. I have not used the newer versions of Visio, so I am not too sure if the newer versions are any more user-friendly than prior versions. Hopefully, they are.

There were issues with stability. When attempting to have more than three diagrams open at a time, the system frequently crashes; however, I have never experience a crash with only one diagram open.

There were some scalability issues. While new shapes can be added, there is still the issue with compatibility problems with other versions of the Visio software.

Not too sure. I have never contacted tech support for this product.

I did not use a different solution. I used Adobe Photoshop for other needs that are sometimes similar, but for diagramming MS Visio is the best.

Initially, the program looks very similar to other Microsoft Office products, however once you get into the program, it is difficult to understand where to start. I tried using the software without training, in the beginning, and only became frustrated at not understanding how to use the program. However, with a moderate amount of training, creating basic 1-layer diagrams becomes fun and easy.

I obtained this software when I was attending the University of Phoenix, so with the student discount I think I paid $10, back in 2009-2010. I still have and use the same version because the software is a bit pricey and the version I have works well for my needs. I would advise others to try to get discounted pricing through educational institutions, if possible.

I did not evaluate other options. The software was originally needed for completing my college assignments.

I would recommend first determining the needs of the company and what the expectations are for the software. I would then view basic training videos available, to truly see if their needs aligns with the features and outputs of the software program.