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Visio Standard 2013 has Sequence Diagram Template but no Shapes

Anonymous
2014-01-08T22:49:58+00:00

I'm a Systems Engineer and use Sequence Diagrams all the time to communicate concepts effectively. I saw that Visio 2013 contains a great UML Sequence template so asked IT support to install it. They installed the Standard version, and I tried it out.

Apparently, this version of Visio has a UML Sequence template, which supposedly contains a Stencil with all the shapes and connectors. However, upon creating this new diagram, no shapes are available. I know now that you need to upgrade to the Professional edition in order to use the shapes. It seems a bit strange to me to claim the tool has full capabilities for creating a diagram, and even have a diagram template available, but then leave out the shapes and suggest an upgrade.

As everyone knows, these licenses can be hard to manage for an organization, and switching out the versions may not even be possible. So I'm a little disappointed that I won't be able to create diagrams in this. Hopefully this can be a discussion for MS to at least be more clear in the communication of its capabilities, or even just offer the shapes along with the diagram in Standard.

Thanks for listening!

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-01-09T06:08:41+00:00

    Hopefully MS will listen, but not likely.

    Unfortunately MS is reverting to bad old habits. Visio has separate levels that have different features. And they have re-introduced this distinction to Excel also. 

    For a long time no matter which bundle you bought, they all had the same features. It made buying decisions much easier. It was much easier to market reliable to customers.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-01-09T01:37:03+00:00

    Hi,

    As you said, UML Sequence template shapes only provided in Visio 2013 PRO.

    http://office.microsoft.com/en-in/visio-help/use-uml-to-create-class-sequence-use-case-activity-or-state-diagrams-HA102749764.aspx

    And try some templates that will work in standard with the following link:

    http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16216250/uml-diagram-shapes-missing-on-visio-2013

    http://www.hanselman.com/blog/UML20DiagramsAndShapeDownloadsForMicrosoftVisio.aspx

    Please Note: Since the web site is not hosted by Microsoft, the link may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this information.

    Regards,

    George Zhao

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