MS Visio Live Data Feeds Support BPM Consoles

Miscrosoft Visio Live Data

Recent Web 2.0 development in Microsofts graphics software Visio have brought the program alive and elevated it from static diagrams to business process control panels.
By linking elements on the flow charts to live data feeds the graphics transform into control screens for business process management [BPM].

The impact of this is that not only will processes be able to be viewed in real time, but changes in workflow can be executed – with no BizTalk or Visual Studio coding required.

These features are scheduled for release around 2010, and may be included in the next release of Office.

Today, Visios 15 million users cover all industries - manufacturing, professional services and financial services with about one third of users in IT to map network infrastructure and workflow.

ISV Application Use

Independent software vendors (ISVs) have already incorporated Visio into their technologies. For instance:

• Codima Technologies' autoMap tool (PDF format) can automatically scan corporate networks and create Visio diagrams mapping both the network and their data flows.
• DataAssist GMBH - Visio add-on automatically scans a corporate Active Directory to map all its policies
• Net Docs for SharePoint - allows Visio to scan a corporate SharePoint infrastructure and map all sites in a tree-like diagram.

BPM Modelling Power

The first step of Microsoft plans to add support for the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) standard will enable users to automatically model a process, scan it and validate it. Following thereafter, capabilities will allow for processes to be managed and changed from the Visio diagram, creating a real-time dashboard that could supplement current systems management dashboards and consoles.

Naturally, this dashboard capability can also be applied in Operational Business Intelligence. With data being able to be presented in highly graphical ways, non IT users will be able to locate and pull data from databases or spreadsheets to real time charts and consoles.

As yet, there are no plans for a ‘lite’ consumer version or hosted software as a service [SaaS] releases.

Next: Enterprise Wide Advanced Analytics

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