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 PRO 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 PRO. It is one of the main contender with the most similar features and capabilities.

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 PRO software.

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 PRO 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.

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 PRO 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.

DFD Flowchart Symbols

A Data Flow Diagram (DFD) is a graphical technique which allows effectively model and analyze the information processes and systems. The ability to fast and easy create the DFDs is made possible with Data Flow Diagrams solution from the Software Development area of ConceptDraw Solution Park. For designing the Data Flow Diagrams are used simple DFD flowchart symbols which are connected each other by arrows depicting the data flow from one step to another.

Data Modeling with Entity Relationship Diagram

Data modeling is actively applied in analysis and uses wide set of methods for description the data requirements in a system. One of the most popular and well-known is the ERD method of database modeling. The best ERD tool for the Mac and Windows is ConceptDraw PRO software extended with the Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution from the Software Development Area for ConceptDraw Solution Park, which is sharpened for professional ERD drawing and data modeling with Entity Relationship Diagram.

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 PRO 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.

UML Flowchart Symbols

The UML diagram is a powerful tool which lets visually represent all system's components, the interactions between them and relationships with external user interface. The Rapid UML solution for ConceptDraw PRO software offers diversity of UML flowchart symbols for drawing all types of UML diagrams.

Flow chart Example. Warehouse Flowchart

Warehouse Flowcharts are various diagrams that describe the warehousing and inventory management processes on the warehouses. Typical purposes of Warehouse Flowcharts are evaluating warehouse performance, measuring efficiency of customer service and organizational performance. This type of Workflow diagrams can be used for identifying any disconnection between business activities and business objectives. They are effectively used by warehouse-related people and organizations, manufacturers, wholesalers, exporters, importers, transporters, and others. Standard Warehousing process flow diagram and standard Workflow diagram are used for process identification for further evaluating effectiveness and profitability of overall business process. Use the ConceptDraw PRO vector graphic software extended with Flowcharts solution to design your own professional-looking Workflow diagrams and Flowcharts of any types, including the Warehouse flowchart, Process flow diagrams which depict in details all steps of Warehouse packages flow. Microsoft Visio, designed for Windows users, can’t be opened directly on Mac. But fortunately, there are several Visio alternatives for Mac which will help Mac users to work Visio files. With ConceptDraw PRO, you may open, edit and save files in Visio format.

Gane Sarson Diagram

The Gane-Sarson methodology uses the graphical techniques for building the logical models for the systems. It is helpful for analysts and designers to make common and clear picture of the system, to depict all its processes and how they transform the data. The Gane-Sarson methodology lets represent all this information in a way understandable for the users and other interested people, and gives the possibility to see instantly how the system's parts serve together to meet their needs. This methodology supposes the building of a system top-down. First you need create an overall system data flow, then determine the details of the data structures, the process logic and design the modular structures. ConceptDraw PRO diagramming and vector drawing software offers the Data Flow Diagrams solution with Gane-Sarson Notation library rich for the specific symbols of the Gane-Sarson notation. All they are vector and fully ready-to-use for drawing the Data Flow Diagrams, which will be then successfully used in presentations, websites, and various business documents.