Flow Chart Symbols

The Flowcharts are incredibly useful and popular tool used in science, business, software development, analytics, engineering, marketing, manufacturing, administration, architecture, government, politics, and many other fields thanks to a variety of existing types of flowcharts. A Flowchart is a visual graphical representation of the process, algorithm, or the set of steps taken for problem's solution. Widely used for designing, visualizing and documenting simple and complex processes and programs, they effectively help to understand the process and to find easier the flaws if they are. Each flowchart type supposes the use of its own set of notations for drawing corresponding diagram, which includes the symbols of process, decision, data, document, data base, termination, initiation processes, processing loops, conditions, etc. It is easily design a Flowchart using the special professional flowchart maker - ConceptDraw DIAGRAM diagram software with numerous predesigned flow chart symbols grouped in libraries of Flowcharts solution from ConceptDraw Solution Park.

Flowchart Components

The ConceptDraw Flowchart component includes a set of samples and templates. This geathered as flowchart maker toolbox which focused on drawing flowcharts of any industry standards.

Basic Flowchart Symbols and Meaning

Flowcharts are the best for visually representation the business processes and the flow of a custom-order process through various departments within an organization. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM diagramming and vector drawing software extended with Flowcharts solution offers the full set of predesigned basic flowchart symbols which are gathered at two libraries: Flowchart and Flowcharts Rapid Draw. Among them are: process, terminator, decision, data, document, display, manual loop, and many other specific symbols. The meaning for each symbol offered by ConceptDraw gives the presentation about their proposed use in professional Flowcharts for business and technical processes, software algorithms, well-developed structures of web sites, Workflow diagrams, Process flow diagram and correlation in developing on-line instructional projects or business process system. Use of ready flow chart symbols in diagrams is incredibly useful - you need simply drag desired from the libraries to your document and arrange them in required order. There are a few serious alternatives to Visio for Mac, one of them is ConceptDraw DIAGRAM. It is one of the main contender with the most similar features and capabilities.

Types of Flowcharts

A Flowchart is a graphical representation of process, algorithm, workflow or step-by-step solution of the problem. It shows the steps as boxes of various kinds and connects them by arrows in a defined order depicting a flow. There are twelve main Flowchart types: Basic Flowchart, Business Process Modeling Diagram (BPMN), Cross Functional Flowchart, Data Flow Diagram (DFD), IDEF (Integrated DEFinition) Flowchart, Event-driven Process Chain (EPC) Diagram, Influence Diagram (ID), Swimlane Flowchart, Process Flow Diagram (PFD), Specification and Description Language (SDL) Diagram, Value Stream Mapping, Workflow Diagram. Using the Flowcharts solution from the Diagrams area of ConceptDraw Solution Park you can easy and quickly design a Flowchart of any of these types. This solution offers a lot of special predesigned vector symbols for each of these widely used notations. They will make the drawing process of Flowcharts much easier than ever. Pay also attention for the included collection of ready Flowchart examples, samples and quick-start templates. This is business process improvement tools. If you are looking for MS Visio for your Mac, then you are out of luck, because it hasn't been released yet. However, you can use Visio alternatives that can successfully replace its functions. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM is an alternative to MS Visio for Mac that provides powerful features and intuitive user interface for the same.

Technical Flow Chart

Flow chart is a diagrammatic representation of an algorithm and essential part of planning the system. Flow charts are widely used in technical analysis and programming for easy writing programs and explaining them to others. So, one of the most popular type of flow charts is Technical Flow Chart. Technical Flow Chart can be drawn by pencil on the paper, but it will be easier to use for designing a special software. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM diagramming and vector drawing software extended with Flowcharts Solution from the "Diagrams" Area of ConceptDraw Solution Park will be useful for this goal.

Process Flow Chart

A Process Flow Chart is a type of flowchart which is mostly used in industrial, chemical and process engineering for illustrating high-level processes, major plant processes and not shows minor details. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM diagramming and vector drawing software extended with Flowcharts Solution from the "Diagrams" Area of ConceptDraw Solution Park is the best way to create Process Flow Chart and other types of flowcharts.

Business Process Flowchart Symbols

Business process modeling is known in the corporate world as an excellent tool which can speak. Business process flowcharts, diagrams and maps are used to define the business processes in terms of inputs and outputs, to visually represent and effectively explain complex business processes of an enterprise, and also showcase decisions on a single piece of paper. The process of business process mapping supposes the use of special business process flowchart symbols predefined by Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and taking their roots from the data processing diagrams and programming flow charts. In other words the BPMN standard notation is a common language used for business process design and implementation, that guarantees a clarity of designed Business Process Flowcharts for all business analysts, technical developers and business managers. The ability to create professionally-looking Business Process flowcharts, maps and diagrams, is provided by powerful ConceptDraw DIAGRAM software and the Business Process Mapping solution included to ConceptDraw Solution Park.

Cross-Functional Flowchart (Swim Lanes)

Cross-Functional Flowchart is a type of chart which shows the series of process steps connected by the arrows to depict their order and applies the swim lanes to provide an extra dimension with means of assigning each process step to certain category. Often the category or the functional unit is a stakeholder (department, person, role), resource, project, phase, or any other attribute. Cross-Functional Flowcharts visually illustrate relationships between the business processes and the functional units responsible for this processes. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM is a powerful diagramming and vector drawing software for professional design Cross-Functional Flowcharts using the common notation of shapes and swim lanes. Cross-Functional Flowcharts solution included to the Business Processes area of ConceptDraw Solution Park provides numerous well-designed vector objects and connector tools for quick, easy and effective organizing information, representing process flows and relationships, and drawing Cross-Functional Flowcharts for business, science, education, technology, etc.

Cross-Functional Flowchart

Use of Cross-Functional Flowchart is a clear way of showing each team member’s responsibilities and how processes get shared or transferred between different responsible people, teams and departments. Use the best flowchart maker ConceptDraw DIAGRAM with a range of standardized cross-functional flowchart symbols to create the Cross-Functional Flowcharts simply and to visualize the relationship between a business process and the functional units responsible for that process. To draw the most quickly Cross-Functional Flowcharts, Cross Functional Process Maps, or Cross Functional Process Flow Diagrams, start with a Cross-functional flowchart samples and templates from ConceptDraw Solution Park. The ConceptDraw Arrows10 and RapidDraw technologies will be also useful for you in drawing. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM supports designing both types - horizontal and vertical Cross-functional flowcharts. A vertical layout makes the accents mainly on the functional units while a horizontal layout - on the process. If you need a Visio alternative in Mac OS X, try ConceptDraw DIAGRAM. Its interface is very intuitive and it’s actually much easier to use than Visio, yet somehow it’s just as powerful if not more so. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM performs professional quality work and seamless Visio interaction.

Swim Lane Flowchart Symbols

Use the set of special professionally developed swim lane flowchart symbols - single, multiple, vertical and horizontal lanes from the Swimlanes and Swimlanes BPMN 1.2 libraries from the Business Process Diagram solution, the Swim Lanes library from the Business Process Mapping solution as the perfect basis for your Swim Lane Flowcharts of processes, algorithms and procedures.

Accounting Flowchart Symbols

Accounting is a well known and popular tool used for gaining full quantitative information about the finances. The accounting process includes extensive set of activities that begins with transactions and ends with closing of books. It contains all financial information for a given organization, the data about incomes, expenditures, purchases, sales, return, payroll, and many other numerical information. The excellent possibility to create great-looking Accounting Flowcharts is offered by professional ConceptDraw DIAGRAM diagramming and vector drawing software. It includes the Accounting Flowcharts solution containing wide variety of predesigned accounting flowchart symbols. All symbols are easy recognizable, commonly used, vector and professionally designed, so are capable effectively save your time and efforts when representing all stages of accounting work process, the flow of data in an organization, accounting procedures and processes, documents, tasks, responsible people, users, components and authorizations.

Entity Relationship Diagram Symbols

The semantic modeling method nowadays is successfully applied in database structure design. It is effective method of modeling the data structures, which is based on the meaning of these data. As a tool of semantic modeling, there are used different types of Entity-Relationship Diagrams. Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is applied to visually and clearly represent a structure of a business database. The main components of ERDs are: entity, relation and attributes. An entity is a class of similar objects in the model, each entity is depicted in the form of rectangle and has the name expressed by a noun. Relation is shown in the form of non-directional line that connects two entities. There are several notation styles used for ERDs: information engineering style, Chen style, Bachman style, Martin Style. The Entity Relationship Diagram symbols used for professional ERD drawing are predesigned by professionals and collected in the libraries of the Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution for ConceptDraw DIAGRAM software.

How to Build a Flowchart

The ConceptDraw DIAGRAM is a professional software for quick creating great looking flowcharts. The vector stencils from object libraries allows you to use RapidDraw technology. By the clicking on direction arrows one can add new object to flowcharts. This technology gives to users the ability to fast creating visualization for the structural data. Learn the basics of flowcharting and see how to build create a flowchart using ConceptDraw automatic drawing tools.

ERD Symbols and Meanings

Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is a popular software engineering tool for database modeling and illustration the logical structure of databases, which uses one of two notations - Chen's or Crow’s Foot. Crow's foot notation is effective when used in software engineering, information engineering, structured systems analysis and design. Each of these notations applies its own set of ERD symbols. Crow's foot diagrams use boxes to represent entities and lines between these boxes to show relationships. Varied shapes at the ends of lines depict the cardinality of a given relationship. Chen's ERD notation is more detailed way to represent entities and relationships. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM application enhanced with all-inclusive Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution allows design professional ER diagrams with Chen's or Crow’s Foot notation on your choice. It contains the full set of ready-to-use standardized ERD symbols and meanings helpful for quickly drawing, collection of predesigned ERD samples, examples and templates. ConceptDraw Pro is a great alternative to Visio for Mac users as it offers more features and can easily handle the most demanding professional needs.

Accounting Flowchart

Accounting flowchart is a system of processes to represent accounting system of an organization. If you need to know how accounting processes work and how each operation is done, the Accounting Flowcharts Solution for ConceptDraw DIAGRAM has a predesigned library, tips, methods and symbols for easy drawing an Accounting Flowchart.

Audit Flowchart Symbols

The audit is a complex process consisting of defined quantity of steps, which have as a final goal the ensuring of success of a certain business project. It includes the independent examination of data, statements and financial performances of an enterprise for a stated purpose. It is convenient to construct the Audit Flowcharts or Audit Diagrams for visual representation and structuring the audit processes. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM diagramming software enhanced with Audit Flowcharts solution from the Finance and Accounting area of ConceptDraw Solution Park effectively helps to draw the Audit Diagrams for accounting, finance and money management, the Audit Flowcharts for fiscal information tracking, financial inventories and documenting Six Sigma, the decision making Flow Charts, etc. This solution provides the powerful drawing tools, numerous templates and samples, and large quantity of vector audit flowchart symbols that greatly facilitate the process of representation the audit steps and audit results, and designing efficient and visually appealing Audit Flowcharts.

Flowcharting Software

A flowchart is a useful type of diagram quite popular in many areas of science and business, which represents some algorithm, workflow or process. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM diagramming and vector graphic software extended with Flowcharts solution from the "Diagrams" area of ConceptDraw Solution Park is also ideal flowcharting software with powerful tools that assist in easily making the Flowcharts of different types and directions, in representing the flowchart steps and describing the flowchart processes, in realizing the flowchart constructions, creating the process flow models, designing the data flow diagrams, and many other flowcharting related diagrams. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM software maximally facilitates the drawing process by means of included predesigned vector objects, which only need to be dragged to your ConceptDraw document from the corresponding library and connected with smart connectors. This way lets equally easy make the simple flowcharts, as well as flowcharts of complex processes and procedures.

How To Create a Flow Chart in ConceptDraw

ConceptDraw DIAGRAM is a flowchart creating software. This software includes over 20 vector stencils in libraries. These objects allow you to create well-designed flowcharts. Put an initial object from library to a page and use RapidDraw technology clicking on direction arrows to add new objects to the flowchart. This way you can make flowchart quickly.

Data Flow Diagram

Data Flow Diagram (DFD) is the part of the Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology (SSADM), which is intended for information systems projection and analysis. Data Flow Diagrams allow graphically represent the data flows in information system and analyze the data processing during the structural projection. This type of diagrams lets visually show a work of information system and results of this work, it is often used in connection with human processes and can be displayed as Workflow diagram. Data Flow Diagram visualizes processes and functions, external entities, data depositories, and data flows connecting these elements and indicating direction and data character. Each of these elements used for DFD has its own graphical notation. There are two notations to draw DFDs - Yourdon & Coad and Gane & Sarson. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM extended with Data Flow Diagrams (DFD) solution from Software Developmant area is ideal for designing professional looking DFDs, which can be then easily exported in various formats.

Flowchart design. Flowchart symbols, shapes, stencils and icons

A flowchart is a type of diagram which represents an algorithm, process or workflow, displays the steps as boxes of various kinds and depicts their order by connecting them with arrows. Any business graphic document will be more colorful and understandable if will use professional-looking and visual diagrams and flowcharts. Flowchart design gives versatile presenting and explaining of the process. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM flowchart software enhanced with Flowcharts solution helps effectively make Flowchart Design. Use of predesigned flowchart symbols and bright color palette offers a fresh view and favorably distinguishes the flowcharts designed in ConceptDraw DIAGRAM from the black and white flowcharts on a paper. Preferably to use no more than three or four colors and apply identical for the same shape types. The best flowchart design can be achieved by starting with Flowchart template, or any of suitable ready examples or samples offered in ConceptDraw STORE, open one of them and enter the proper text into each Flowchart shape. Each symbol of the flowchart has a definition that can't be changed. This means that all flowcharts shapes can be grouped in according to their meaning. Users with ConceptDraw DIAGRAM flowchart software can style groups of symbols with close definitions by color sets chosen from complementary palette. Almost all workflows can be depicted as a flowchart. Colored diagrams are more light for perception of the certain information, this is part of flowchart design. Bright colors need to be used in the key points of Decision symbols, to focus attention on their importance for whole process flow.