CostCaptain: Microsoft Visio 2007 Professional

Visualize complex information to better understand it

Office Visio 2007 provides a wide range of templates —business process flowcharts, network diagrams, workflow diagrams, database models, and software diagrams — you can use to visualize and streamline business processes, track projects and resources, chart organizations, map networks, diagram building sites, and optimize systems.

More easily visualize processes, systems, and complex information using new or improved features in Office Visio 2007:

Get started quickly with templates. Office Visio 2007 includes specific tools to support the diverse diagramming needs of IT and business professionals. Create a broader range of diagrams with new templates, such as the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) template and the Value Stream Mapping template in Office Visio Professional 2007. Use the predefined Microsoft SmartShapes symbols and powerful search capabilities to locate the right shape, whether it is saved on a computer or on the Web.
Quickly access templates you use often. In the new Getting Started window, find the template you need by browsing simplified template categories and using large template previews. Locate the templates you used recently by using the new Recent Templates view in the Getting Started window
Get inspired by sample diagrams. Find new sample diagrams more easily by opening the new Getting Started window and using the new Samples category in Office Visio Professional 2007. View sample diagrams that are integrated with data to get ideas for creating your own diagrams, to realize how data provides more context for many diagram types, and to determine which template you want to use.
Connect shapes without drawing connectors. New AutoConnect functionality in Office Visio 2007 connects shapes, distributes them evenly, and aligns them for you — with only one click. When you move the connected shapes, they stay connected and the connectors automatically reroute between the shapes.

Explore information to identify trends and issues and act on them

Using Office Visio Professional 2007, make your diagrams even smarter by linking them to data to provide a more complete picture of a process, project, or system. Visually explore information to identify key trends, issues, and exceptions, and then act on them. Analyze, drill down into, and create multiple views of business data to gain insight into it.

Easily connect data to diagrams and link data to shapes. Automatically connect diagrams to one or more data sources, such as Microsoft Office Excel 2007 spreadsheets or Microsoft Office Access 2007 databases, by using the new Data Link functionality in Office Visio Professional 2007. Save time associating data with shapes by using intuitive new linking methods, which populate each shapes properties (also known as shape data) with data values. For example, link all the shapes in a diagram to rows of data from connected data sources by using the new Automatic Link Wizard.
Display data attractively in diagrams. Easily display data associated with shapes in attractive ways by using the new Data Graphics feature in Office Visio Professional 2007 to choose from a number of data formatting options. With a single click, display data fields as callouts next to a shape, position fields in boxes below a shape, and place fields of data directly on top or to the side of a shape.
Easily refresh data in diagrams. The new Refresh Data feature in Office Visio Professional 2007 automatically refreshes all the data in your diagrams so that you don’t have to do it manually. If data conflicts arise, easily resolve them by using the Refresh Conflicts task pane, also included with Office Visio Professional 2007.
Visualize business data. Visually explore business data that's normally shown in static text and tables by using PivotDiagrams. Create different views of the same data to more fully understand the issues.
Visually report on project information. Office Visio 2007 is an indispensable tool for visualizing complex project information. Easily generate reports directly from within Microsoft Office Project and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server that track project tasks, owners, roles, responsibilities, and depict complex project ownership structures. Automatically modify the reports as project information changes.

Communicate using diagrams that can be shared with a broad audience

Communicate information using Visio diagrams to maximize its impact in ways words and numbers alone can’t. Then share your professional-looking Visio diagrams with others, even those who don’t have Visio.

Communicate more effectively and in more ways to reach broader audiences by using new and improved features in Office Visio 2007:

Design professional-looking diagrams. The new Theme feature in Office Visio 2007 makes it easy to format the colors and effects (text, line, fill, shadow, and connector formatting) in an entire diagram with a single click. Office Visio 2007 even uses the same color palette as other 2007 Microsoft Office system programs so that you can easily design professional-looking Visio diagrams that match your presentations and documents. Create more dynamic workflows with new 3-D Workflow shapes, which were designed with the new Theme feature in mind.
Reach broader audiences.. Save Visio diagrams in PDF or XPS file format to make them more portable and to reach broader audiences.¹ View Visio diagram attachments from within Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.
¹You can save as a PDF or XPS file from a 2007 Microsoft Office system program only after you install an add-in.
Share diagrams with others. Save your diagrams as Web pages complete with navigation controls, a shape data viewer, reports, choice of image format, and style sheet options. On intranets and extranets, anyone who’s using Visio Viewer with Windows Internet Explorer can view the diagrams from within Internet Explorer.
Collaborate using Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services. Shared workspace functionality supports collaboration with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services. Visio diagrams saved on a Windows SharePoint Services sites can be opened directly in Office Visio 2007 from the site, and even checked in and out from within Office Visio 2007. When a diagram is opened from a Windows SharePoint Services site, Office Visio 2007 opens a Shared Workspace task pane that contains all of the information in the workspace, including other files, members, tasks, and links.
Collaborate on the same Visio diagram. With the Track Markup feature, multiple people can collaborate on the same Visio diagram. Generally used for reviewing a diagram and incorporating feedback, Track Markup helps make each reviewer’s contributions clear to other reviewers and to the person who eventually incorporates the revisions in the diagram.

Customize and extend Office Visio 2007 programmatically to fit customized needs

Extend Office Visio 2007 programmatically or by integrating it with other applications to fit your industry-specific scenarios or unique organizational requirements. Develop your own custom data-connected solutions and shapes, or use those from Visio Solution Providers.

Customize and extend Office Visio 2007 programmatically by using new and improved features:

Plan, analyze, and visualize your custom solutions. Visualize custom solutions with Office Visio 2007 diagrams, such as Unified Modeling Language (UML), data flow, and Microsoft Windows user interface diagrams, by using templates in the Software and Database category of Office Visio Professional 2007.
Build powerful custom solutions. The Office Visio 2007 software development kit (SDK) can help new and existing Visio developers build programs with Office Visio 2007. The SDK includes extensive samples, tools, and documentation to simplify and speed up development of custom applications. The SDK provides a set of reusable functions, classes, and procedures for the most common Office Visio 2007 development tasks and includes support for a broad range of development languages, including Microsoft Visual Basic, Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, Microsoft Visual C# .NET, and Microsoft Visual C++.
Add Visio diagramming functionality to any context or program. With Office Visio 2007 and the Visio Drawing Control, create custom data-connected solutions that make it easy to connect to and display data in any context. Using the Visio Drawing Control, developers can embed and program the Visio drawing environment in custom applications. It opens up new opportunities for solution integration, making it easy to include the power of Office Visio 2007 in any smart client application. Because the Visio Drawing Control can be integrated with the host application’s UI, developers can take advantage of Visio drawing functionality as a smooth part of their application without having to develop similar functionality themselves.

Take advantage of new data-driven solution support and new features in Office Visio 2007. You can control several new features in Microsoft Office Visio 2007 programmatically, including connecting to a data source, linking shapes to data, displaying linked data graphically, connecting shapes to one another automatically (AutoConnect), monitoring and filtering mouse-drag actions, and applying theme colors and theme effects. Each of these features has an associated application programming interface (API) that makes it possible to control the feature programmatically and new objects and members associated with it in the Visio object model. You can find more information about new developer-related features in Office Visio 2007 on MSDN and in the Office Visio 2007 Software Development Kit (SDK).

To use Microsoft Visio 2007, you will need:

Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 2 or later or VISTA or
                Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (or higher) required.
              500 megahertz (MHz) processor or higher; 256 megabyte (MB) 
                RAM or higher; DVD drive; 1 gigahertz (GHz) and 512 MB of 
                RAM or higher is required to run Microsoft Office Outlook 
                2007 with Business Contact Manager.
              2 gigabyte (GB) necessary for install; a portion of this disk 
                space will be freed after installation if the original 
                download package is removed from the hard drive.
              Minimum 800x600; 1024x768 or higher recommended
              Broadband connection, 128 kilobits per second (Kbps) or 
                greater, for download and activation of products.
              Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 with service packs, Microsoft 
                Exchange Server 2000 or later required for Outlook 2007 
                users. To install Outlook 2007 with Business Contact 
                Manager, you will need to first install Outlook 2007