ConceptDraw PRO v10 Supports Visio 2013 File

In the process of conducting business, words alone often do not have the ability to describe a situation, state, or process with enough accuracy to guarantee successful communication to stakeholders, team members, and other assorted individuals. To convey a faultless understanding to others it is often necessary to include graphics and diagrams to support the meaning conveyed. The combination of words and graphics associated to the text is a powerful cohesive means of communication that removes participant doubt and improves clarity. The end result is to accelerate business. Business today is conducted at an incredible rate. The speed of business has increased for organizations of every size and for all participants.

Powerful business graphics and diagramming tools are the norm and not the exception for today’s businesses. For these important visual communication tools to do their job it is often important that they be compatible with a file format that can be easily shared with others. For years the de facto standard file format for business has been the Microsoft Visio™ file format. Many people involved in visual communication need software tools that will read and write the Visio file format.

With the introduction of Visio 2013 Microsoft has changed the native file format used in earlier versions of Microsoft Visio.  With the release of Visio 2013 the native file format is based on a new XML file structure that is highly compressed. The implementation of these file structure changes improves the customer experience. 

As a result when looking for a Visio alternative people, people need the ability to open and save in the newer Visio 2013 file format.  ConceptDraw PRO v10 is such a viable alternative for individuals and organizations that are looking for a professional business solution. ConceptDraw PRO v10 file import and export works round trip with the new Visio VSDX file format; plus ConceptDraw PRO is easy to use, and an economical solution. 

Compatibility	ConceptDraw PRO v9	Concept Draw PRO v10
Microsoft Visio 2013	NA	Import/Export new file format VSDX
Microsoft Visio (previous to 2013)	Import/Export file format VDX	Improved Import/Export file format VDX

An additional plus is that ConceptDraw PRO and the other ConceptDraw products support both Apple OS X and Windows. CS Odessa from the first release of the ConceptDraw product line has designed and built its products to work on both of these powerful desktop systems. 

You or your organization use Macintosh? ConceptDraw is a powerful and inexpensive solution that will address all of your business and individual needs. You or your organization use PCs? Again ConceptDraw PRO addresses your business requirements. You or your organization use both PCs and Macs? Once again the solution to your business graphics needs is clear – ConceptDraw PRO v10.

Other important considerations are that ConceptDraw PRO v10 is a perpetual license, no additional monthly or annual payments required. ConceptDraw PRO is licensed per individual user, making for an economical solution. Our users do not need to individually pay and license ConceptDraw product to run on different operating systems. As a licensed individual user you can run your purchased product on both Macintosh and PC.

When looking for the right graphics software solution, be sure consider the following:

1.  Open and save to Visio 2013 VSDX file format
2. Supports Apple OS X and Windows
3. Open and save Visio VDX file format (legacy Visio format)
4. No charge technical support (web and phone)
5. Perpetual license (no additional monthly or annual costs required)
6. No need to be connect to the web or experience delays when working (internet connection only required for product activation)
7. Low cost of ownership
8. Extensive object libraries, samples, and templates included
9. New graphic solutions available (via ConceptDraw Solution Park) on a frequent basis
10. Discount pricing is available for academic, nonprofit, government, commercial, upgrade, and competitive upgrades (paid product)
11. Can be purchased as an economical standalone license or purchased in conjunction with the comprehensive productivity suite of ConceptDraw Office (ConceptDraw Office includes: ConceptDraw MINDMAP v7 - brain storming, note taking, presentations, ConceptDraw PROJECT v6 - project management, resource management, and ConceptDraw PRO v10 business graphics)

When surveying the marketplace for a business graphics software solution, ConceptDraw PRO v10 becomes the clear choice for you and your organization. Try a fully functioning 21 day trial copy of ConceptDraw PRO v10 for free.  Just register on ConceptDraw.com, then download and install to enjoy the next generation of business graphics and diagramming product.

ConceptDraw MINDMAP Listing Accounting Resources

Accountants and individuals involved in accounting often use mind maps in their work.  I have made available for download a ConceptDraw mind map file that contains a myriad of resources for accountants and financial people.  The file can be downloaded from here.

You can find out more about CS Odessa and our ConceptDraw products from here.

ConceptDraw PRO: An Excellent Tool to Describe Accounting Process Flows

One of accounting’s chief concerns is to be as accurate as possible in describing a business’ financial condition. Businesses rely on accounting, more today than ever in the history of business. Legislation has imposed new rules and regulations on the accounting in companies to protect the interests of people who have a vested interest in those companies. The Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 is well-known for its impact on companies by proving more accountability for company management.

There are many areas of accounting that benefit from flowcharts that describe processes inside a company. A flowchart can describe who, what, when, and how a process is managed.  Many times, a flowchart is superior to a written description alone. Written descriptions can work well, but there are often ambiguities that exist in the description. A flow chart spells out the process path for all interested parties.

Take, for example, revenue recognition. Proper recognition of revenue is important for any public company. Improper revenue recognition can lead to companies needing to go back and restate financials. Anything that can minimize the potential for making mistakes on revenue recognition is a great thing, as the reinstatement of previously declared financials is a bad thing for any company.

Any changes to standards, such as revenue recognition, require companies to reexamine their business processes and systems that underlie the business cycle. This planning process helps companies to define what changes are necessary to meet the requirements of any new or existing standards.  Also, a determination can be made on what data is needed to capture the flow of accounting tasks and public disclosures.

ConceptDraw Finance and Accounting Area

ConceptDraw PRO, by CS Odessa, has updated and added new finance and accounting solutions to the ConceptDraw Solution Park for free download by our customers. These new solutions provide financial managers and accountants with updated tools for visual financial planning, reporting, modeling, auditing, and accounting.

The solutions from the Finance and Accounting area extend ConceptDraw PRO v.9.5 (or later) with financial and accounting diagrams and charts. The ConceptDraw Solution Park is an area of the ConceptDraw web site were we continually add new templates, samples, libraries, and functionality to add value to our customers’ user experience. CS Odessa has launched over 30 new solutions over the last 12 months, and all of them are available at no charge for our customers. In addition, ConceptDraw customers have available to them no-charge technical support. Our support team is standing by to help our customers stay productive.  Support is available via phone, ticket, and email. CS Odessa strives to be a value and productivity leader. This is exemplified by our support, product licensing, learning materials, and commitment to customer satisfaction. 

All ConceptDraw products support the latest Apple OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems. For more detail please visit the ConceptDraw product site at ConceptDraw.com.

ConceptDraw: A Boon to IT Students and Professionals

Dean Livingston is working on his Masters in Information Technology at the University of Phoenix online. Recently, Dean discovered and purchased ConceptDraw Office at the academic discount to help assist him with his course work. ConceptDraw Office consists of ConceptDraw PRO (business graphics and diagramming), ConceptDraw PROJECT (project management), and ConceptDraw MINDMAP (brainstorming, producing documents and presentations). 

Dean was a long time PC user who switched to a MacBook about 12 months ago. After switching to Macintosh, he then searched for products that could potentially do what Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio did for him when he was a Windows user. With ConceptDraw Office, he found a suite of products that would address his academic and work needs in one bundle at a greatly discounted price.

Dean discovered ConceptDraw while doing a web search for “Visio Alternatives for Mac”. Right away he decided to download and trial the ConceptDraw suite of products. First use for Dean was ConceptDraw PRO for his “Reliable Backup” class to develop a timeline for how backup should occur as part of a class project. He sees that ConceptDraw MINDMAP will be of great assistance in helping him study for his classes and plan papers while he is working on his Master’s degree.

Dean says, “ConceptDraw Office suite is the best software package, it is amazing how powerful the products are. In the near future, I plan on viewing the instructional videos located on ConceptDraw.com to find out more about each product’s capabilities.”

CS Odessa Announces Software Engineering Solutions in ConceptDraw Solution Park

ConceptDraw Solution Park contains lots of new content that we release for our ConceptDraw products. Today's addition to ConceptDraw PRO and the ConceptDraw Solution Park extends the current vector libraries with a complete software engineering solution. CS Odessa has introduced a new set of libraries that provides a complete solution for software engineering diagrams. The Software Development Area in the ConceptDraw Solution Park includes the Entity-Relationship Diagram Solution, Data Flow Diagrams Solution, IDEF0 Diagrams Solution, and the new-and-improved Rapid UML Solution. These new additions to the ConceptDraw Solution Park are free for current users of ConceptDraw PRO v9.

This solution can be found in the Software Development Area of the ConceptDraw Solution Park which includes collections of templates, samples, and libraries of vector stencils and icons that support software engineering diagrams of any level of complexity. ConceptDraw PRO is compatible with Apple OS X and Microsoft Windows.For more information on all of the ConceptDraw Products and Solutions visit us at http://www.conceptdraw.com.

Dear Abe, I Have Just Been Appointed the Project Manager of My Group, Help!

Dear Abe,

My boss has designated me to be the Project Manager of my group. I have a basic understanding of what is required, but I am going to need some advice from you.

At any time my department has 10-12 projects on the go. I have a team of about 20 people that I have at my disposal.  I need to figure out how to balance these twenty individuals over the projects that are active, manage the individual project budgets, and keep everyone up to date on what is going on. I need some big help do you have any suggestions.

Concerned,

Matthew Lewis

…

Hi Matt,

I have some good news for you.  The answer is ConceptDraw Office. ConceptDraw Office is a product suite developed and sold by CS Odessa.  There are three products in this comprehensive product suite. All the products run in native mode on Apple OS X and Windows.

The three products in the ConceptDraw Office suite are ConceptDraw MINDMAP (brainstorming, constructing documents, building presentations, building a process, project management, and a myriad of other uses that will save you valuable time), ConceptDraw PROJECT (the project management muscle of this troika), and ConceptDraw PRO (the business graphics and diagramming portion of the suite).  Each is a useful standalone product that can be purchased separately, but together with their integrations they become one powerful solution.

I will give you a brief example. The ConceptDraw MINDMAP product helps you brainstorm and assemble the projects content.  Working with your team makes it much easier to attain consensus and to build the project structure.  Project phases, tasks, resources can be quickly organized by dragging-and-dropping the information. Launching a project has never been easier.

ConceptDraw PROJECT lets you manage any number of projects and balances your resource s over the tasks in your projects. This will work well with your requirement of having 10-12 projects and one pool of resources. There are a plethora of reports that keep track of how things are going, giving you the ability to track progress and report to stakeholders.  The reports are generated in Excel format so you are free to do additional number crunching and charting. Also ConceptDraw PROJECT can pass your project data to ConceptDraw PRO where dashboards are generated in the blink of an eye. Your project data changes, no problem.  Generate a new dashboard quickly. Everyone has a clear understanding of what is going on.

Also you will find that any of the ConceptDraw products is an economical solution for you and your team members. Detailed information on all of the ConceptDraw products can be found at http://www.conceptdraw.com. There is even a large video library on the web site that will get you up to speed in literally minutes. Matt great question, I am glad I had a solution for you. Now everything should be tickety-boo for you.

Best regards,

Abe

Popularize Mind Mapping One Student or Classroom at a Time

I talked with one of the academic/career advisors at Boise State University today. It turns out that they have someone on staff who's in charge of putting together academic skills training programs for students. These programs help improve study habits, note taking, research organization, and writing.

I haven't been able to talk to this other staff person, but I know two things that I want to talk to them about:

1. Do you teach mind mapping to students? If so, what do you teach them to do?
2. If you don't, can I come in and teach a class or two?

How About You?
I'm sure BSU isn't unique in offering these classes to student. What would it take for you to contact the nearest community college, vocational/technical college, or university and ask them if you could teach a class?

I run into some many parents whose children have learning problems. Few of these parents have heard of mind mapping or how it can help kids with dyslexia, who struggle with reading comprehension, or who have a hard time organizing writing assignments. I've gone into local schools and taught classes to 5th graders, and have gotten a good reception from students and teachers alike.

You may not think you're a mind mapping expert. But I bet you have all the skills you need to show students of all ages how to become more productive and less frustrated.