SMARTDRAW IN SOFTWARE DESIGN:

SmartDraw Boots Visio^® from the Software Designer's Toolbox

Problem
Ted Grzesik, a software engineer for i2 Technologies, Inc., is responsible for architecting, designing, and implementing web-hosted applications. He was looking for an easy way to draw software diagrams and deployment drawings that illustrated hardware, network, and software resources.

Grzesik had tried Microsoft's Visio^® in the past, but to no avail. "I tried Visio^®, and ran away screaming," said Grzesik. "Root canals are more fun than Visio^®."

He tried a few other UML design tools, but they all yielded disappointing results. "I never finished anything with other programs like Visio^®," he said. "It was just too frustrating."

He was also having problems sharing his Visio^® drawings with other users.

Grzesik searched for a tool that was less cumbersome and that more easily met his immediate needs. He found SmartDraw, and quickly downloaded a free trial at the www.smartdraw.com website.

Solution
Grzesik was sold on SmartDraw immediately.

"Within minutes I was actually drawing my own diagrams," he said.

SmartDraw offers thousands of symbols, images, and templates, including several thousand for software design including UML diagrams, data flow diagrams, entity relationship diagrams, GUIs, and more. And unlike Visio^®, SmartDraw requires no training and includes free, live, 24-hour support.

"The symbol libraries are very thorough," he said. "I found that I could draw software diagrams exactly as I want them."

SmartDraw also includes hundreds of pre-drawn templates for virtually any software-related drawing, which Grzesik found immediately beneficial. "90% of the time, I'm able to use a template as a starting point," said Grzesik. "This was a huge time-saver!"

With SmartDraw's polished-looking symbols and simple drag-and-drop drawing, Grzesik was able to create a variety of diagrams quickly and easily, including drawings for Web application deployment, software stack, ClearCase branches, hardware requirements, UML components, and UML activity.

Grzesik was even able to include images of real hardware in his diagrams, thanks to SmartDraw's one-click photo insertion features.

"The drawings look very nice, with very little effort," he said.

Results
Grzesik continues to use SmartDraw to quickly create UML diagrams and hardware deployment diagrams for his company's website.

"The biggest benefit of using SmartDraw is speed," he said. "I can crank out drawings very quickly in SmartDraw. It's simple and it really saves me time."

Plus, Grzesik says that his drawings are always easily understood by others, and he recommends SmartDraw to anyone for technical diagrams.

Grzesik found that SmartDraw's flexibility, ease of use, and power put it in a league of its own. And even though his company already has a corporate Visio^® license, he chose SmartDraw.

"There are a lot of UML tools out there that do a good job of building the relationships from the source code," he said. "But once that is done, they don't have the power of SmartDraw to allow easy manipulation of the drawing."

"My experience with purpose-built, high-level design tools has been unsatisfactory," said Grzesik. "They cost too much, take too long to get started, and are restricted to solving only one problem."

But everyday business applications were only the beginning for Grzesik, who says "With SmartDraw, I can draw my software diagrams by day, and my soccer team calendar by night."