Microsoft Visio is a commercial diagramming program from Microsoft to create diagrams. This software is mainly used in businesses, architecture, academic institutions, research institutes, and many other fields to create flow charts, process flow, design, and other commercial oriented diagrams. The current version, Microsoft Visio 2010 for Windows, is available in three editions: Standard, Professional and Premium. The Standard and Professional editions both share the same interface, however, the latter has additional templates for more advanced diagrams and layouts as well as unique functionality that intend to make it easy for users to connect their diagrams to a number of data sources and display the information graphically.
I have used the standard version during my graduate studies of Mechanical Engineering to create process flowcharts and several other drawings. It enables to drag and draw in-built shapes and connect the shapes very easily. It is also possible to edit the diagram and save it as different files. It is compatible with windows and hence is ubiquitously accessible. It is a fantastic tool for students and employees as well.
In my job also, I continued using the professional Visio to create engineering drawings and project timelines. I also used it for more practical applications like process flowcharts for the departments to be included in internal documentation. Such documents are needed as a requisite for a regulated company. MS Visio is more of a manual drawing tool enabling the user to place the shapes as desired and connect the shapes with lines. We can select one shape at a time by dragging and dropping. We also need to give the arrows separately in order to show the flow of the process. Adding and deleting shapes is lengthier in MS Visio. We have to add a shape separately along with the connection arrows. This makes MS Visio more tedious and tiresome. Also, we have to adjust the arrangement and alignment of the shapes accordingly. Editing takes a lot of time to give the drawing a professional look.
Recently, I have come across SmartDraw which is the visual processor. I was quite amazed by a library of functions and user friendliness of this program for doing the most tedious drawing jobs. It offers easiest ways of drawing for example, we can double click the shapes and those get connected with the arrows automatically, thus showing the flow of the processes. Also, adding and deleting of new process shapes is much easier with SmartDraw. We can also change the connection arrows or directions of the shapes. It has automatic drawing and editing tools offering much ease in using. Being a visual processor, it automatically corrects and arranges itself much like a word processor. Hence, the time required for creating and editing is drastically reduced with enhanced productivity. They also have a help desk support enabling even a novice for self-learning. SmartDraw also supports MS Visio files to view and edit. In sum, SmartDraw is the one-stop solution for all your drawing and graphical needs. I would always prefer SmartDraw to MS Visio. Additionally if it has to be analyzed on prices basis SmartDraw proves to be a winner on MS Visio. With so much of functions incorporated in SmartDraw, we tend to think it costlier than Microsoft Visio. However, to my surprise SmartDraw retails for $197 for a single user license and they also have deals for multi-user licenses. In contrast, the MS Visio Standard version retails at $249, the Professional version retails at $559, and the Premium version retails at $999 (they’re available from Amazon for $206, $435, and $632, respectively). So we can equip the entire organization for less than the maintenance cost on the equivalent number of seats of MS Visio thus saving 50% or more. Of course, this is such an incredible stuff to believe. Just have a look at this: http://www.smartdraw.com/specials/visio-vs-smartdraw.htm. This site compares SmartDraw and MS Visio with respect to features and costs.
The transition from MS Visio to SmartDraw can be an economically and time-reducing decision for our company. It would improve productivity at a much faster rate. We can complete more number of diagram assignments in the same period of time and that too with much higher efficiency and accuracy. SmartDraw will also help us to utilize out time for analyzing the diagrams instead of wasting time on its editing and beautification. This way we can harness the analyzing potential of the employees instead of making them work on tedious drawings. We can get professional drawings created easily, much faster and more effectively. If we want to increase our productivity and ultimately our profits, we should definitely go for SmartDraw.
