Comments on Automating Diagrams with Visio

Lee Fleming — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:59 GMT

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Benjamin Bennett – you’ve made my life SO much easier!

I read this article the day I was starting to map a huge web-based application site for a client. Using Visio. My first reaction was, “Is the author nuts? How is using two applications automating anything?” (This is still my reaction.)

But I read through the comments, and came across Bennett’s mention of Inspiration. I immediately downloaded the trial copy and used it to map a third of the app in just one afternoon – a feat that would’ve taken at least a couple of long days using Visio (the longer MS has owned this app, the more bloated and harder to use it’s gotten). It’s a good-looking map, too, just using the defaults. The learning curve is practically non-existent, especially compared with Visio (let alone adding Excel into the mix).

I bought the software – the biz version, which has more useful templates than the school version – and I’m happy to say that I’m abandoning Visio.

Michael — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:59 GMT

With my process, I’m exporting Excel files as .csv (comma separated values). In Visio 5, you can do…

File > Open (open dialog window appears)
    Files of type: Text Files (*.txt,*.csv)
    Select file “ex1_visio_import.csv”
    Click Open (File Converter dialog window appears)

I’ve heard that you can work with Excel files directly in Visio 200x, but can’t verify how you do that, since I work with Visio 5 (haven’t upgraded yet).

Joaquin Marquez — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:59 GMT

I’m running Visio 2002, but i can’t find the option to open Excel files… when you click on “Open File” the Excel option is not included into the “file type” dropdown. Is it an optional filter or plug-in?

Todd Barlow — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:59 GMT

I’ve run up against a limitation of the csv import in Visio. I thought the readers of this article would like to know about it.

I get an error if I try to give a shape a name longer than 31 characters. Of course, the error message doesn’t tell you that.

Danilo Medeiros — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:59 GMT

Better yet: use the built-in outlining features of word… works like a charm. We´ve done this integrated with FLASH/XML to create 3d site maps that were really cool! Cheers

Michael — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:59 GMT

To answer Christopher Fahey’s question:

> Do you really make your flowcharts in Excel before putting them into Visio? You find this *easy*?

I said this in the article:

> The best approach is probably to first draw your flowchart on paper and number the shapes in the chart.

That’s what I have done in the past—draw flow charts on paper and then number and put into Excel. I worked with some software development teams where the flow charts were created to document offline processes/work flow to understand how a program that we were working on could mimick these steps. After going through the process with users, we diagrammed on paper what we thought we were hearing and flowed that into Excel/Visio. As we went through the flow charts, we found inconsistencies I made modifications via the spreadsheets, and was able to automate the changes.

Do I find the process easy? Yes and no. I found that it made it quicker to make changes. I did NOT worry so much about how pretty these charts turned out, and it helped that individual aspects of interaction were broken up into many use cases. Each case was diagrammed on 11”x17” paper, so I didn’t worry much about having to continue across multiple pages.

In any case, the process is one that I used in the past, but not every time. I only used it for large scale projects. For smaller projects, I actually have been trying to use OmniGraffle more. I admit, after trying Inspiration for a few days, that I’m going to consider using that for my next project. I’m not really married to any tool, but really love when I can use a tool to do my work a little more efficiently.

Chas — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:59 GMT

Anything that could potentially squash two steps (1. create the content outline; 2. create the flow chart) into 1 would be great. The clean-up as George mentioned is the rub.

I’ve been playing with the text import in Visio for a while and have not been able to create a chart that is NOT radial (probably the layout least able to be cleaned up easily). There is a placementstyle field that can be used, but doesn’t seem to work. Anyone else run into this? Granted I’m running Visio2000 which may have a bearing.

Inspiration is a wonderful tool simply on account of its built-in outliner. It’s limitation is it’s unprecise page controls for multipage documents.

George Olsen — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:59 GMT

For flowcharting an interaction, I’m not sure it’s that efficient, but for site maps it could be quite useful. It’s not really creating your flowcharts in Excel as much as creating a flowchart based on your content matrix, which you’re doing anyway.

I’m currently working on a project involving three global sites, each with hundreds of pages (the content matrix takes up 20+ tabloid pages). Having to hand-draw site maps that large is a real pain—particularly when all-too-often revisions occur.

Visio 2002 gives you more control over how the diagram gets laid out, so I’m experimenting with that to see if I can avoid the sort of clean-up Michael talks about—since that’s the major obstacle to this being useful for me.

Christopher Fahey — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:59 GMT

Do you really make your flowcharts in Excel before putting them into Visio? You find this *easy*?

To me, Visio’s core strength is not in its ability to render easy-to-understand diagrams (although that is clearly a plus). Rather, it is useful because it allows you to QUICKLY translate abstract ideas about cause-effect relationships, information structures, etc. into concrete documentation. It seems to me that designing the flowchart for, say, a simple registration process might take me about 10 or 20 times longer if I did it in Excel first.

I’ve often heard of the benefits of using the Visio/Excel connection to translate graphic information into spreadsheet data (for example to convert a graphical site map into a tabular content inventory). But this is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone suggest going in the other direction.

Am I missing something about the benefits of this?

Melissa Bradley — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:59 GMT

Has anyone used (or is using) NetObjects Fusion to do site architectures and wireframes?

I was forced to switch over from Visio in the middle of a project. I can’t tell if I hate it for the right reasons, or if I’m just too used to Visio, but I’d love any comments on using either.

Sorry for getting a little OT. Meanwhile—I’ll sneak back into Visio to implement Michael’s solutions (thanks, by the way!)....

Michael — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:58 GMT

Thanks, Benjamin. I had heard of Inspiration, but hadn’t used it—my team uses Visio 5 because it’s one of our corporate standard applications. I’ve actually been using OmniGraffle more, however, and exporting to PDF, but OG can’t import data like Visio does. I will definitely try Inspiration, though, because I’m much more comfortable using my PowerBook than my PC laptop.

Benjamin Bennett — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:58 GMT

Ever hear of a piece of software called “Inspiration”?

It’s another great tool for creating “quick and dirty” site maps. Basically it allows you to import your Excel document (or enter your information directly) into its “outline” view…

Providing a hierarchy as you described:
1.0 Home
1.1 Section
1.2 etc….

Then it allows you to dynamically switch from that “outline” view to what it calls the “diagram” view. Basically it automatically converts your hierarchical listing into a site map. The default diagram is definitely better than that default Visio import, but still has plenty of room for improvement. And to accomodate that, it does have basic tools to allow you to change shaps, colors, fonts, etc… The tools are not quite as nice as Visio (nor anywhere near as flexible as Illustrator) but they are definitely good enough to get the job done.

And perhaps one of the best features of Inpiration is that unlike Visio it work on Macintosh as well as Windows!!!

Anyway I’m starting to feel like a salesman (which I’m not) so I’ll leave you with a link to their site…
http://www.inspiration.com/productinfo/Inspiration/index.…

And a “down and dirty” example of what the software can do… These are 140 pages of unpolished site maps that were literally produced in a matter of hours…
http://bcbennett.com/b/portfolio/USBank_SiteMaps.pdf [1MB]
(Caution: I’ve heard this download is painfully slow, so be patient.)

Enjoy!
_B

PeterV — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:31:00 GMT

Efficiency rocks, great article!

I also found having some stencils in Visio really increases my efficiency. The only drawback with being efficient is managing expectations. At my previous job, I would often be able to do a simple but yummie looking sitemap (that didn’t require much thinking) in 10 minutes, but if asked for one, I always delivered it a few hours later (when possible).

I did that because I noticed that the project managers where starting to look at sitemaps as something “Peter can quickly throw together”. It’s harder to explain the thinking time some maps need, than to let them think sitemaps just take time.

Michael — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:58 GMT

Thanks, Jess. Yes, it really helps to use some numbering or lettering scheme to identify each node. We do this with our team for stuff like page identification in content inventories, for taxonomy identification, and such. Working with Perl, it’s easy to manipulate data on a server if nodes are identified this way.

Glad you mentioned that Visio 2002 deals with Excel natively—should reduce the steps for people.

Jess — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:58 GMT

Great article! It’s great if you can get your team to organize functional specs with hierarchical numbering too…it can become a precursor to this.

btw, Visio 2002 has native Excel support – no need to export to a comma-separated text file…