Visio

Pros

It can connect to a wide range of data sources to present data in your charts. It has a wide range of abilities through the various add-ons and tools. The range of standard drawing objects is huge and you can create your own if you know what you are doing.

Cons

It sucks for trying to program against it. Every drawing object has its own properties, methods and behaviors. It is a real nightmare if you need to integrate it into an automation system. The only one I have found that might be worse is Outlook and that would depend on what you were doing.

Pros

I like that I can use Visio to easily demonstrate workflows and process improvement ideas. There is a range of understanding for software like Visio. I do not use it to automate at my place of work, but I use it extensively for visual learners when implementing or discussing new processes, procedures, and ideas. Often I have co-workers take these designs and display them for their team as a physical reminder, others are more intuitive and I work with them to develop interactive workflows (with links, actions, etc.)

Cons

There are some elements to how you design that are not intuitive. I usually spend about 15 minutes with users who download the software to demonstrate how they can make their flows and diagrams. The organization chart is particularly more cumbersome than advertised, but even so, I have users who use it for this purpose. Online resources are sparse as well, and I often am troubleshooting when trying new methods.

Pros

The ease of use, since it uses Microsoft conventions in the tool bar. Features like the drag and drop also ability to add other vendors information to the application.

Cons

Could be an issues sometimes exporting to another browser for all of the microsoft features in an mht file export or html, for interactive web view (clickable document).

Pros

Visio has become one of the major applications which is used in drawing diagrams in the industry. Visio has become almost an official tool in diagraming as it is vastly used In most of the companies in creating diagrams related to their business plans and projects. There are various types of diagrams provided through the application . So the users can draw any type of a diagram according to their requirement from the given diagram types. Because of the large number of diagram types provide by the application users’ does not need to search different software to draw different diagrams which saves both the time and money of the user. Visio offers different editions like Standard, professional and pro with particularly improved functions per each edition. Also Visio created diagrams can be imported in another similar diagram drawing software and do further modifications. Even the diagrams drawn by some selected software can be opened through Visio and edit them. Visio offers both desktop and online versions for the users which helps the users to use the product whenever they want wheatear they are connected to internet or not.

Cons

Visio is not a platform independent software. So far Visio is only available for windows operating system. It does not supports mac os or Linux or any other operating system. Which has limited the usage of the application only for the users using windows. Though there are different editions users have to pay for each edition with more facilities. And the price need to be payed seems to be unfair considering the same category applications. Though there is a desktop version in Visio it is not constantly updated. Updates are available for the desktop version within few years time period. So it is bit difficult to work with the desktop version.

Pros

When it comes to creating an active directory topology, server layout, rack diagram, essentially any type of IT related visualization, Visio is the go to tool.

Cons

More templates could be builtin. More automation and integration with third party applications. Otherwise it is perfect.