Visualize business intelligence data in context using Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007 - Visio

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Visualize business intelligence data in context using Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007

Applies to: Microsoft Office Visio 2007

Visualize business intelligence For business intelligence initiatives to succeed, organizations need to deliver relevant information to the appropriate audience in a meaningful and digestible format. With its powerful data visualization functionality, Microsoft Office Visio 2007 is leading an industry shift towards self-service business intelligence (BI) and contextual data visualization.

Download a free trial and see first-hand how quickly and easily you can create effective great-looking diagrams.

View business intelligence data in context

Self-service BI

Visio Professional 2007 business intelligence diagram samples

Get started with Visio process diagrams

View business intelligence data in context

Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007 enables organizations to deliver complex information to the relevant audience in an easy-to-read visual format. Visio Professional 2007 can be integrated with the Microsoft Business Intelligence solution to visualize business intelligence data in context. An everyday example of visualizing business data in context is mileage, distance, and driving directions overlaid on a map. Viewing the data in context — on the map — rather than on its own makes it much more meaningful and easier to use.

Visio Professional 2007 makes it easy for users to connect and overlay live business intelligence data on business diagrams. This exciting new functionality helps users view and understand process or system performance in a fraction of the time that it would take to comprehend from separate data sources and diagrams.

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Self-service BI

Traditional business intelligence applications require IT teams, consultants, and new, unfamiliar technology. This results in a costly, time-consuming information delivery process. What’s more, if your organization wants to change an existing report, it can take days or even weeks to get it done.

Use Visio Professional 2007 to cut out the IT middleman and eliminate the need for consultants — you’re self-sufficient. For example, import existing process or system diagrams in another format (e.g. CAD) into Visio, and then connect the new Visio diagram to a data source. Or, update diagrams without any help from IT. Just open the diagram in Visio, make your changes, and you’re done — all this in a familiar Microsoft Office environment.

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Visio Professional 2007 business intelligence diagram examples

Tell the story behind your data in meaningful ways that’s easy to understand by using new contextual data visualization functionality in Visio Professional 2007 to integrate diagrams and data. Instead of viewing manufacturing data, charts, and diagrams separately, you can integrate process diagrams with underlying performance data for each step in the process.

In this manufacturing process diagram, the green data bars underneath each step show total processing time, the speedometers show average processing time, and the green data bars next to each step show throughput for the step.

Integrate process diagrams with underlying performance data

View a larger image.

You can also integrate manufacturing data with a factory layout diagram as shown in this image of the diagram before and after it was connected to live manufacturing data.

View a larger image.

As you can see from these examples, Visio diagrams deliver greater impact by showing data in context rather than displaying data in static charts, graphics, or tables alone.

You’ll realize these benefits when visualizing BI data in context with Visio Professional 2007:

Gain deeper insight into your data. Visually explore, analyze, drill down into, and create multiple views of business intelligence data using a wide variety of Visio business, process, manufacturing, and system diagram types.
Respond swiftly to changes that affect your business. Let Visio keep diagrams up-to-date for you with graphics and shapes in them that update in real-time as soon as the data changes in the data source.
Interact with data in meaningful ways. Easily identify key issues, track trends, and flag exceptions using attractive Visio shapes that are designed specifically for tracking data. For example, visualize and flag data that meets certain parameters with icon sets, data bars, ratings, text callouts, or color by value capabilities.

Examples of Visio graphics you can use to visualize data in context. View a larger image.
Leverage and mine a wide variety of data sources. Connect Visio diagrams to data in Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets, Microsoft SQL Server databases, Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services databases, Microsoft Office Access databases, Microsoft Office SharePoint lists, and other ODBC data sources. Use SQL Server add-ins to connect to SQL Server data mining models to dynamically document clustering, dependency nets, and decision trees. Even link a single diagram to more than one data source to show different types of data in the same diagram.

Connect Visio diagrams to a variety of data sources and share the diagrams with team members on SharePoint sites. View a larger image.
Empower people enterprise-wide to take action on data. Present your data in an easy-to-understand visual format to stakeholder and team members — anyone who needs the information most — so they can make more informed operational decisions that will improve the company’s performance and bottom line. Save diagrams as Web pages and publish them to SharePoint sites to assist in collaborative reviews, queries, and group access to diagrams.

Ensure that the right people have access to data-rich Visio diagrams 24x7 in a variety of formats. View a larger image.

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Get started with Visio process diagrams

Downloadable templates
Project flowchart (linked to project budget data)
Bid/no bid decision process flow
Process improvement
Direct marketing process flow
Message processing flowchart
Medical office process flowchart
Current charge-capture process flow

Help and how-to
Create a basic flowchart	Create flowcharts to document procedures, analyze processes, indicate work or information flow, track cost and efficiency, and more.
Create a cross-functional flowchart	Use cross-functional flowcharts to show the relationship between a business process and the functional units (such as departments) responsible for that process.
Create a block diagram	Block diagrams use block and raised block shapes to brainstorm, plan, and communicate.
Create a data flow diagram	Use a data flow diagram to document the logical flow of data through a set of processes or procedures.

Demos
Build your flowchart in no time with AutoConnect	The new AutoConnect feature in Visio 2007 makes it a snap to accurately and quickly connect shapes.
See Office Visio 2007 in action	See how Visio 2007 is an extraordinary tool for IT and business professionals who need to visualize systems, processes, and other information for insight and communication.
Connect data to your Visio diagram	Analyze how a process or other area is actually performing by connecting data to the shapes in your diagram.
Let data tell its story with data graphics	By using data graphics in your Visio 2007 diagram, you can be sure that you're presenting the right data in the right way and making your points clearly.
Give your diagram a makeover by applying a theme	Use themes in Visio Professional 2007 to add color and style to your diagram with just a few clicks.

Developer resources
Integrate Visio 2007 and Access 2007	Use Automation code to create a Visio drawing from data defining the contents of a drawing and the connectivity between shapes stored within Access tables.
Integrate Visio 2007 and Microsoft Active Directory	Learn about several ways to integrate Visio 2007 with Active Directory to create data-driven diagrams that can update data directly.
Integrate Visio 2007 and Excel 2007	Visio 2007 and Excel 2007 provide built-in integration capabilities. See an example of linking data in Visio to Excel by using the Visio Data Selector and an example of creating and populating an Excel Bill of Materials by using Automation code.
Integrate Visio 2007 and SQL Server 2005	Learn how you can integrate Visio 2007 with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 to create data-driven diagrams from stored SQL data.
Integrate Visio 2007 and Microsoft Operations Manager, Microsoft Office Exchange, and Reporting Services	Learn about the native integration among Visio, Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 (MOM), Exchange, and Reporting Services, and about some additional ways that these programs can be integrated by using Visio Automation.
Integrate Visio 2007 and Microsoft Office Project 2007	Microsoft Office Project 2007 and Visio 2007 provide integration capabilities that previous versions did not provide. You can take advantage of these capabilities by using a combination of native features and COM add-in features.
Integrate Visio 2007 and SharePoint Products and Technologies	Learn about enhanced features for integrating Visio 2007 with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

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