SMARTDRAW IN BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT:

Picture-Perfect Flowcharts with SmartDraw

Starting Point
Harold Jarche is an independent consultant specializing in performance improvement. His company, Jarche Consulting, offers advice on the integration of work, learning, and technology systems.

To create flowcharts and other technical diagrams, Jarche needed a program to augment his presentation software.

"I wanted to create more complex drawings like flowcharts," said Jarche. "I had used Visio^® in the past, but wanted something less expensive."

Luckily, Jarche found SmartDraw's free trial on the web.

Making Connections
SmartDraw's user-friendly interface and intuitive tools made getting started a snap.

"SmartDraw was so simple, I didn't even need any of the tutorials," Jarche said.

He could create a perfect flowchart in just minutes. He especially liked being able to quickly drag-and-drop flowchart shapes to lines that formatted his diagram automatically. The symbols stayed connected even as he resized them or moved them around on the page.

"Even the most complex drawings took less than an hour," said Jarche.

Since he works with a wide range of clients, Jarche was happy to have access to SmartDraw's thousands of symbols and templates.

The program also allowed him to export his completed drawings in a variety of common graphics formats including WMF, BMP, JPG, GIF, TIF, and more, making them easy to insert into any presentation or document.

"SmartDraw's export feature is extremely helpful," said Jarche. "It works well with Openoffice.org."

Presentation Quality
Jarche is now a regular SmartDraw user.

"I use SmartDraw every week," he said. "Depending on my workload, there are weeks I'll even use it more than once a day.

His polished-looking diagrams are winning praise from his clients.

"Clients really like having visual models, especially in concept documents," said Jarche.

In addition to creating flowcharts, Jarche also uses SmartDraw for brainstorming and business modeling.

"The results are clear," said Jarche. "SmartDraw is absolutely essential to my business."