posted02/09/10
Flowcharts are fairly simple things. Before I wrote this, I almost thought “Hey, who’d ever need a tutorial on how to draw a flowchart? It’s too simple and it’ll probably need one line to explain.” Well… not really. There’s more to flowcharts than simple shapes and arrows connecting them if you want to get the idea across. Some tips below to help you create better flowcharts that get the message across:
Identify why you are drawing the Flowchart(s)
You may be drawing it to explain a process to someone, to understand a process, to find loopholes in a flow and so on. It is important to identify the objective on why you want a flowchart for this.
Are there many ‘actors’ involved?
If there are different responsible parties (or things) involved in each step, you might want to convey that information clearly with a Swimlane flowchart. They help clarify who / what is responsible for each step quite easily.
If you have many actors (say more than 6), it might be better to generalize them if possible. Ex. rather than having two columns for Sally or Rob at HR department, just group them into the HR department. Again, it all depends on who the audience is.
On Swimlanes, Creately has some neat tricks that automatically glues shapes to swimlanes so you don’t miss them when resizing etc.
Decide on the start and end points of the flowchart
As trivial as it may sound, a flow with random endings is more confusing than it helps. So choose the objectives and keep it simple.
Break it down into multiple flows
Very long flowcharts can cause the reader to overlook the details that you are actually trying to convey. It is best to break down a flowchart into sub-flows. Use the connector and inbuilt link feature to create automatically linked documents with sub-flows in Creately.
Get your team on-board
Documenting processes or planning steps requires careful review and thinking. You can use Creately’s inbuilt collaboration features to help kick this process off easily.
Use colors meaningfully
You can color code your flowchart objects to convey things like Risk involved, Who’s responsible, Process state (Draft/Final), basically anything you want. But always remember to include a legend on the corner so everyone knows how to read the chart.
@chandika
posted30/08/10
Today we are launching our new Creately Diagram Viewer. It’s a simple embeddable widget that allows you to include a zoom-able, sharable and always updated Creately diagram in any web page. To top it off, we’ve created a Google Gadget to allow the Creately Diagram Viewer to be used easily with iGoogle and for our Google Apps customers within your Google Sites.
Diagram Viewer Widget
The Creately Diagram Viewer is a HTML5 web widget that lets you easily embed an interactive Creately diagram viewer into any webpage. You can add the widget to your webpage by simply pasting the embed code from the properties panel inside Creately into your webpage source. You can add the widget to as many pages as you like and also add multiple widgets to the same webpage. Once added just save your webpage and your Creately diagram is available immediately.
Great Features
The Creately Diagram Viewer comes with some great features that will make creating and sharing diagrams with Creately a breeze. Try the live example below to see what we mean.
Mouseover to see the Viewer in action
You can change the dimensions of your widget so it fits perfectly into any webpage. The widget provides Zoom and Pan features that mean even the largest diagrams are still clear and easy to navigate. There’s now no need to scale your exported diagram image just to fit it to the webpage and in the process lose the detail in your diagrams. Simply set up the size of your widget and embed it into any webpage.
Always Update to Date
The widget always fetches the latest version of your diagram to display making sure that visitors always see the latest version. When working as a team on the same diagram or diagrams in a project all the changes made using Creately will be reflected immediately in your documentation ensuring that the Creately diagram and the published webpage stay in sync. This save time and reduces costs because you no longer need to upload or update the diagram images and reduces errors due to old knowledge being published.
We are big fans of Twitter and Facebook and we know a lot of our users are too. The Creately Diagram Viewer provides the tools for effortless sharing with built in Facebook and Twitter buttons. We all enjoy receiving praise and love for our work. When you embed your Creately diagrams in your site you can receive the qudos for your work you deserve.
Community Diagram Pages
To get a real world feel for the Creately Diagram Viewer please visit the Public Diagram Pages which are all now powered by the Creately Diagram Viewer. Note - Click on the diagram to go to the individual diagram page and see the Creately Diagram Viewer - try out the zoom, pan and sharing features as you browse the diagrams. On each diagram page don’t miss the right panel for the embed code. Finally remember if like any of the diagrams, show your love by sharing it via Twitter or Facebook with 1-click!
Google Gadget For Apps and iGoogle
Creately is loved by thousands of Google Apps users. With Creately we’ve been working hard to bring better diagram and collaboration to Google Apps. So this week Google Sites finally gets what it was missing - built-in diagrams that work just like the wiki does.
The brand new Creately Diagram Gadget for Google Sites and iGoogle makes it easy to embed the Creately Diagram Viewer into the Google Platform. This way, anyone who edits your Google Apps Site can also easily access and update the Creately diagram from right within the site.
For those who are impatient to get going just use this URL for the Creately Diagram Gadget: http://creately.com/player/gadget/createlyplayer.xml
Just like the Creately Diagram Viewer, the Gadget’s diagram is always up to date and brings with it the benefits of collaborative working.
No More Squinting
The Creately Diagram Gadget allows you to embed multiple diagrams from Creately in to a single Sites page along with explanatory text. You can create really big diagrams, and still embed them on Site pages without having to scale them down. Just alter the display dimensions of the Creately Diagram Gadget and click to embed. Your Google Site page now remains neat and intact with all your Creately diagrams appearing within the Creately Diagram Viewer allowing your full control of your Sites appearance.
The Creately Diagram Gadget for iGoogle provides all the same features as the Google Sites gadget plus it allows you to embed your Creately diagram anywhere that accepts a Google Gadget.
You can learn how to embed this gadget on Google Site by visiting our Creately Diagram Gadget instructions page. Or check out the Creately Diagram Gadget on the Google Gadget listing page - and don’t forget to leave us a review. Thanks!
@Creately Team
posted21/07/10
You’ve got traffic?
We normally use funnel diagrams to understand the flow of a user through our website, to the application, and then onto the purchase pages (or not). Some great tools are out there and just last week @Indu blogged about using Funnels & Goals in Google Analytics to better understand your funnel and conversion rates.
This week, we went and applied the same to our traffic funnel in three steps.
- Identify how our potential customers find out about Creately. The ‘trigger’ to visit the site.
- What their motivations are. Why are they here?
- Identify the pages they land on, and craft a message that resonates with the visitor’s intent and motivations. This will achieve lower bounce rates and far better conversions in a funnel.
Ok, again: Being relevant is key. but how do we know what’s relevant unless we know what you want?
Map it out!
It’s easier to map this out in a diagram, and here’s ours - How People Discover Creately. Some of the bounce rates are guesstimates though.
We first identified the source for them to come to Creately, then we break them down by their motivations and where they would go on the site to what landing pages.
The next phase is to make sure the landing pages speak to them well and address their questions. That’s another post for another day 
Before I go back to more diagramming and numbers, do you find this approach useful? How do you look at your traffic funnel?
@Chandika
posted18/02/10
For any business, especially a web startup, having a sensible and comprehensive Social Media strategy is key to online success. To help you work out a comprehensive strategy, we’ve put together a simple framework with Creately that captures the basic aspects of the Social Media landscape that you’ll need to consider.
Social Media today goes well beyond social networking and blogging. It consists of many categories, but here we have chosen to highlight 10 key aspects which should be your business’ focus as you start on your Social Media journey. I’ve included two tools for each category to help you put your social media strategy into action.
@Induja
posted13/02/10
Hi, it’s been awhile since we added new Templates to Creately - well at least not in this New Year. So we thought we’d hand out some treats just in time for the Lunar New Year (it is the year of the Tiger after all).
Project Management Templates
First off - a couple of new business Templates to help you with your Project Management diagrams. Every Project Manager needs a good Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and Project Team Organizational chart - so @Induja put mouse to pad and created these templates to make your Project Management tasks a wee bit easier.
Work Breakdown Structure Template
Project Team Organizational Chart
Matrix Structure Template
We also know many of you today work in cross-functional teams with fairly complex reporting structures - so we’ve added a Matrix Structure Chart to help you and your managers visually capture the who’s who in your project teams.
Web Design Templates
Don’t worry we never forget our Developer and Designer fans either. This week - 3 new web design templates to help to deliver on your project milestone faster.
First off, a new webpage Wireframe Template that uses a wide range of UI elements to demonstrate the extensive shapes and UI elements we support in Creately (including a Video Player, Google Maps Widget and Breadcrumbs). Besides this, we’ve added 2 new templates to quickly create web Sitemaps and web page flows.
Webpage Wireframe Template
Website Page Flow Template
Web Sitemap Template
Check out how easy it is to work on website wireframes and mockups with Creately. As always, you’ll find these new templates right there in the “Create New Diagram” window in Creately - so login to check them out.
We hope you’ll benefit from these templates. If you’ve got suggestions for new Templates - just drop us a note or send us a tweet - We’re always listening.
@Charan
