What's New in Business Process Visual ARCHITECT 4.0?

Draw Fact Diagram

Relate glossary terms and design business structure by fact diagrams. Fact diagram supports attributes, unary fact type, binary fact type and n-ary fact type.

Group Glossary Terms by label

You can use label to group your glossary terms. One term can have multiple labels and you can filter glossary terms by label.

Commit partial changes to server

• Commit part of local modification to VP Teamwork Server
• Commit diagram
• Commit some shapes
• Commit some model elements

Protect diagram by password

Avoid unauthorized changes by locking diagrams with password.

Tutorial

• Protecting your design in a team collaboration environment

Browse Tasks by grid

Grid diagram gives another perspective of your project file. You can browse your design in tabular format and configure showing which columns.

Adjust application font size

Increase or decrease Business Process Visual ARCHITECT application font size to fit to your usage.

Tutorial

• Adjusting application's font settings

Create connectors with turning points

Save diagramming time by create connecting objects with multiple turning points at once.

Tutorial

• Bending connectors during creation

A³ Platform integration

Reference to A³ Platform's activities, issues and requirements easily. Open the referenced A³ Platform resources by just a few mouse clicks.

Support URL for all shapes

Every element in VP project has a unique URL. You can send the URL to your colleagues to locate the target elements easily.

View dependent project diagrams

View sub-project diagrams in the master project without switching project back and forth.

Duplicate business process from reference project

Automatic copy reference project model elements to current project. All model element members and properties will be copied at the same time.

Import Visio diagram to Stencil

Reuse Visio diagram with UML diagrams by importing Visio Drawing to Stencil.

Place ID box in any position

ID box position:Top-rightRight-topRightRight-bottomBottom-rightBottomBottom-leftLeft-bottomLeftLeft-topTop-leftTop

Freely place ID label to anywhere or place the ID label in per-defined 8 direction.

Tutorial

• Positing ID labels for shapes in BPD

Showing shape name in different angle

Showing shape name in different angle:

	Left (left-rotated)

	Right (left-rotated)

	Left (right-rotated)

	Right (right-rotated)

Flexible caption placement options for different diagram layout.

Tutorial

• Rotating caption labels in BPD

Remember expanded and collapsed connection points

Remember expanded and collapsed connection points:

	Collapsed

	Expanded

Automatic restore connection end point between expanded and collapsed shapes.

Specify secondary pool and lane

Visualize inner and inter organizations operations with Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) 2.0. BP-VA fully supports BPMN 2.0 notations and comes with a bunch of diagramming toolset like voice documentation, sweeper and magnet.
The following movies demonstrate designing sales order processing business diagram with some handy features like sweeper and magnet.

Tutorial

• Develop As-is and To-be Business Process Model
• BPMN2 business process modeling
• Working with sub-process
• Assigning secondary pools to a BPMN task
• Understanding element ID

Online training

• BPMN 2.0 (Paid)
• Requirements capturing with BPMN and UML (Paid)

YouTube videos

• Define the workflow BPMN

Calculate cost in simulation

Visually simulate the execution of business process diagram. Instances of pool and lane, required resources and activities' durations are adjustable for process improvement.

Tutorial

• Improving a body check business process through simulation

Online training

• Business Process Simulation (Paid)

Business Process Visual ARCHITECT supports exporting and importing Microsoft Excel file. Excel is the best tool for mass editing of model element names and properties. You may export diagram to Excel file, edit their names and properties in tabular format, and then import the changes back to Business Process Visual ARCHITECT. The following screenshots demonstrate how to export and import Excel file.

MS Excel file import and export

Step 1 of 6: Open the project

Open the project file for exporting Microsoft Excel (Excel) file.

Step 2 of 6: To export Excel file

Export Excel file by selecting File > Export > Excel... from the main menu.

Step 3 of 6: Specify file path

Specify the file path of saving the Excel file, select diagram(s) and the type(s) of model elements to be presented in the Excel file. Click Export to start exporting.

Step 4 of 6: Edit the Excel file

Read, analyze and edit the Excel file externally.

Step 5 of 6: To import Excel file

To merge external changes by importing an exported Excel project file through selecting File > Import > Excel... from the main menu. After that, specify the path of the Excel file to import.

Step 6 of 6: To confirm the chanages

Changes resulted by importing Excel file, if any, are listed. You may click Save Details to record the changes in a separate Excel file. To proceed with importing, click OK.

Project file

Exported Excel file

Specify line jump size

Line Jump Options:

	Off

	Arc

	Gap

	Square

When drawing a complex diagram with many shapes and connectors, connectors may intersect with each other. Line jump feature is design for decorating the intersection, which makes it easier to identify connection paths. Business Process Visual ARCHITECT supports arc, gap and square line jump options. The following screenshot shows all line jump options and you can try different line jump in left hand side pane.

Tutorial

• Working with line jump

Impact analysis glossary term

Analysis diagram helps to identify full consequences of changes before you really make changes. Analysis diagram visualize all related model elements. You can further analyse specific model element by clicking the analyse resource icon. The following flash demo demonstrates how to use analysis diagram to do impact analysis.

Filter model elements in Report Writer

Share business process design within and across teams with project publisher. Project publisher can generate business process diagram to web format. There is no special requirement to host the published content. The latest version supports glossary grid in published project.
The following movie shows you how to publish project with Project Publisher and use the published content.

Tutorial

• Producing business process report with report writer

Filter model elements in report template designer

Design business process report template with visual template designer. The latest version added a lot of customizable elements and increased usability. The following movie shows how to use report template designer to design your own report template.

Tutorial

• Design and generate business process report

Sort visual diff result

Compare as-is business process diagram and to-be business process diagram. Identify new, deleted and updated tasks between diagrams. The latest release supports exporting differences to PDF for reporting purpose.

Specify DPI when export PNG

Business Process Visual ARCHITECT can export diagrams into several image formats, such as JPG, PNG, SVG and EMF. The following screenshots show how to export Business Process Visual ARCHITECT diagrams to image files.

Export diagrams to various image formats

Step 1 of 3: To export diagrams are images

Export images by selecting File > Export > Diagrams as Image... from the main menu.

Step 2 of 3: Specify output destination

Specify the directory for saving the exported image files, choose the diagrams to export and select file type, which can be JPG, PNG (with/without background), SVF and EMF. Click Export when ready.

Step 3 of 3: Obtain the exported images

The exported image files can be found at the output destination specified.

Project file

Exported image file

Generate report with dependent project

Business Process Visual ARCHITECT supports generating design blueprints to PDF files. The paper size, cover page design, TOC, page header and footer are all customizable. You may select to include/exclude diagrams and model elements, and reorder the content. There are various options to control the styles and formatting of the generated PDF. The PDF generation feature is available in Windows, Mac OSX, Linux and Unix platform. The following movie demonstrates how to generate PDF report with business process diagrams and entity relationship diagram. The movie also shows how to customize the order of model elements, as well as to setup cover page, page header and page footer.