Productivity Portfolio

Defining Your Requirements

When selecting a program, there were two requirements that were important to me. The first was the program had to cover most of my diagramming needs. If you need to do a specific type of diagramming regularly, you may be better served by a specialized package rather than a general one. For example, although the program handles mindmaps, I didn’t expect it to be better than a specialized program such as MindJet’s MindManager.

My second requirement was I didn’t want a steep learning curve. Since I don’t plan on diagramming every day, I wanted a package that was easy to understand. One of the points the company tries to stress is ease of use. In the marketing material, they state that new users could become “instantly productive with stunning results”.

SmartTemplates and SmartHelp

The product starts by having you select a category from a list on the left side. The groupings seem to cover most items people would need for business or personal use. Some of the 19 categories could be used for either use. Although the company states they are the world’s most popular business graphics software, it looks like they are trying to appeal to business users and home users.

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The big difference comes once you make a selection. In many case, you can either select from an existing example as your starting point or use something called SmartTemplate ™ technology. Although Microsoft Visio has wizards, SmartDraw provided more of these starting points. The diagram below is a Meeting Minutes form I created from using one of these templates.

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One of the items that first caught my attention was the top toolbar (4). It reminded me of the new Microsoft Office ribbon and yet that feature is not used in Visio 2007. I think the ribbon concept is an easier interface for people to learn a software program. The items displayed on the ribbon changed based on what I was doing to the diagram.

I found the work area was nicely laid out in thirds. You could close a section by clicking the close box in the top right. The left side (1) represented objects I could drag and drop onto my drawing area (2). Although this work area is scaled down, you could easily zoom using the toolbar. The right pane is context sensitive help, which the company calls SmartHelp. Besides the built in SmartHelp, the company offers a series of step-by-step tutorials and video tutorials on their website. The company calls the video tutorials “webinars”, but you don’t need to register and they are always available.

Although the layout is nice, there were times when features weren’t obvious. As with most programs, there are subtleties you will still need to learn. One example was when I tried to remove a row from my form. I highlighted the row and hit my Delete key. That option works on certain diagrams such as when you want to get rid of the big plant on your office floor plan. However, on this form, I needed to first deselect “Do not allow text editing”. I had to first highlight the row and right-click to find that option. A similar example happened when I tried to create a symbol library. The Knowledgebase article told me to select an item under the Libraries menu, but didn’t give me the best starting reference. I needed to first select the down arrow on the Documents section of the ribbon to see that option.

Quality of the Diagrams

As with all programs that include symbol libraries, some people won’t like the caliber of the art. I think this depends on your diagram type and your audience. The company does provide other versions of the program for specific industries, which might address this concern. As example, there are special versions for the legal and healthcare industries. There is also a CEMM (Customer Expectation Management Methodology) edition.

I was also pleased with the ways you could save your work. Aside from having a number of file formats including PDF, you can easily copy your diagram into Microsoft Office applications. Once you create your diagram, you’ll see a set of small icon in the top left. Clicking one of these icons will port your diagram to the designated application. The exception being the PDF icon as it appears you need to first download and install another piece of software.

Part of the quality issue relates to the output. I didn’t test all the printing options because the trial limits you to three prints. Given the program places a watermark on the trial version, I don’t know why the company restricts you to three prints. This seemed to me an absurd limit.

One print option links to their print partner, Mimeo .Don’t expect this feature to be like the FedEx/Kinko’s option you see on some toolbars. The button will take you to the Mimeo site and offers a discount on your first order.

SmartDraw Annoyances

Although I like the program, there are several annoyances. The first one I suspect will catch many people who download the 7 – Day trial version. Unless you read the full EULA, you may miss that the company places a watermark on your diagrams. You can see an example of the SmartDraw watermark in the screen capture below. The agreement also states that some features may not work. This is in contrast to Microsoft and their Visio 2007 demo. Microsoft provides a fully functional 60-day version. One benefit to the trial is you periodically see a $100 online coupon when the program goes online to retrieve information. This coupon brings the cost down to what I think is a more reasonable price.

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The other difficulty I had was searching for symbols. For example, I changed the name of one of the symbols in the Edit Symbol dialog. Later, when I went to find that symbol, I couldn’t. When I spoke to support, they said that the program is searching off keywords that are internally assigned. Yes, free support is available for the trial version.

In other cases where a symbol was found, the program would highlight the library, but I needed to scroll through the contents to find the specific occurrence. If you’re looking for a symbol such as “telephone”, you may be shocked to see over 30 libraries containing this keyword. This means you may have to scroll through all these libraries to find the symbol you want.

Despite these annoyances and the restrictive trial, you should look at the SmartDraw. The program does a good job of guiding the user in creating a wide selection of diagrams. Although the new version of Microsoft Word 2007 has improved its graphics ability, this program offers much more. It seems to have found the sweet spot for those people who have broad diagramming needs and find programs such as Visio intimidating. I won’t say SmartDraw made me “instantly productive” or my results were “stunning”. I will say that the product did a better job of guiding me in the diagramming process so I could create nice workable diagrams in short order.

Version reviewed: 8.17
URL: http://www.smartdraw.com/
Cost: $297 (discounts sometimes show on site or through trial coupons)
Rating: ★★★☆☆

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