Visio page formatting with workflow diagram

[Can Visio move things down pages nicely?]

Situation .... you have a 9 page long linear workflow chart. Let's say each
page has about 7 objects (process, decision, comment box) on it. It looks
pretty and well laid out with off page connections.

New situation ... you forgot an important step in the workflow on the 2nd
page! You need to insert another decision on the 2nd page. Things are tight
.... no room to squeeze it in. You'll just simply have to "insert" it. Sort
of like adding a link in the middle of a chain ... not rocket science is it?

Now ... you're screwed royally because you have to manually readjust the
alignment for all the other objects on pages 2 through 9. What fun! It
like using a Word processor where if you insert a paragraph in the middle of
your document, you get to manually reformat every page after that page. And
the best part is, if you later again need to insert another paragraph ....
you get to do it all over again manually. What
fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone tell me it is my igorance of Visio that is the problem. Don't tell
me that Visio is incapable of automatically moving a chain of objects to the
next page when you insert another object. If that were the case, I would
have to go to Redmond to meet the team of Visio programmers and give them a
piece of my mind.

The problem no longer is the workflow process that I am trying to cleanly
diagram, the problem is either Visio itself or my ignorance of how to
properly use Visio.

Help!

 

[philippe c]

I don't know about the repagination, but in the next version of Visio it will
be possible to insert a shape "into a connector".
They have a special name for it , "split and heal" maybe.

 

[Paul Herber]

I don't know about the repagination, but in the next version of Visio it will
be possible to insert a shape "into a connector".

That has existed at least since Visio 2003, maybe before. Create a
flowchart diagram with a few shapes joined with connectors and drop a
shape onto a connector, the scissor shape will appear and when the
shape is dropped the original connector is "split" into two.

 

[philippe c]

But you still have to do a lay-out afterwards.
I don't think it works with lamps and switches. It should work a bit as the
Insert/WriteOver button in Word.
Does the man in the first message have a point ?

 

[Paul Herber]

Situation .... you have a 9 page long linear workflow chart. Let's say each
page has about 7 objects (process, decision, comment box) on it. It looks
pretty and well laid out with off page connections.

New situation ... you forgot an important step in the workflow on the 2nd
page! You need to insert another decision on the 2nd page. Things are tight
... no room to squeeze it in. You'll just simply have to "insert" it. Sort
of like adding a link in the middle of a chain ... not rocket science is it?

Therein lies the problem, rocket science, aka Newton's third law is
simple and has been known about and understood for several centuries.

Unlike a word processor file a Visio document is very complicated, the
visual ordering you see on the screen bears no relation to how Visio
arranges data internally. Fundermentally, the order of shapes
internally in Visio is the order in which shapes were added to the
page. So, "inserting" at the visual level is certainly not a simple
operation.

However, in your diagram the action of moving things automatically is
often the type of thing that annoys users the most, what is obvious
and should be automatic in one case is completely wrong in another.
You remember that annoying paperclip in Word?