Flowcharting Tool features customizable rule sets.
Press Release Summary:
Offered as add-in for MS Excel, FlowBreeze v1.0 enables users of Microsoft Office drawing tools to automate generation of flowcharts. Users create flowcharts by typing text for any given shape in location they want shape to be. Software then generates flowchart shape based on content of text and user-customizable rule set. Software automatically generates flow line connectors between shapes and allows users to pre-format flowchart shape colors, font, text alignment, and line styles.
Original Press Release:
BreezeTree Software Announces the Release of FlowBreeze Flowcharting Software
BreezeTree Software Launches FlowBreeze 1.0, an Innovative Flowcharting Tool for Microsoft Office Users
Sherwood, OR March 19, 2006 - BreezeTree Software today announced it has released FlowBreeze 1.0, a flowcharting software add-in for Microsoft Excel. With FlowBreeze, users of Microsoft Office drawing tools will now be able to automate the generation of flowcharts.
The product marks the launch of the first in a series of flowcharting, process mapping and value stream mapping tools that BreezeTree Software will release in the coming year. The products will be targeted at professionals in the ISO 9000, Six Sigma, and Lean markets.
"Our market surveys found that 15-20% of quality professionals used the built-in tools in Microsoft Office to produce their flowcharts," said Nicholas Hebb, founder of BreezeTree Software. "FlowBreeze will bring a whole new level of flowcharting productivity to those users."
Traditional flowcharting tools work by having the user drag and drop shapes into place, type the text, then add the connectors between the shapes. Afterward, users find themselves spending a lot of time aligning and formatting the shapes.
FlowBreeze eliminates most of these steps by letting users create flowcharts just by typing the text for any given shape in the location they want the shape to be. The FlowBreeze flowcharting tool generates a flowchart shape based on the content of the text and a set of rules that is fully customizable by the user.
The two most powerful rules are the customizable keywords and prefixes. For each shape type, the user can identify keywords that, when entered, cause FlowBreeze to create that shape. A simple example would be identifying "document" as a keyword for the Document shape. Entering the text "Print document" would then generate a Document shape containing that text.
A user can also force an entry to generate a specific shape type by using a prefix in their entry. A prefix is a short abbreviation for the shape type followed by a colon that the user prefixes to the text entry. For example, a Merge shape (inverted triangle) is commonly used to indicate storage. The user could define "sto:" as a prefix for the shape, and any entry containing that prefix would generate a Merge shape.
FlowBreeze automatically generates flow line connectors between shapes and allows users to quickly pre-format the flowchart shape colors, font, text alignment, and line styles.
Other productivity enhancing features include automatic start and end terminator generation, automatic label generation for decision shapes, and, a favorite among pre-release users, the ability to copy a list of process steps from another document (e.g. Microsoft Word), paste it into the FlowBreeze environment, and have the bulk of the flowchart generated automatically.
An added benefit of using FlowBreeze is the built-in ability to collaborate with other people. With more than 400 million Microsoft Office users worldwide, FlowBreeze users can create flowcharts in Excel, and then share them with just about anyone. Collaborators can edit and maintain the flowcharts without having to purchase separate and often expensive drawing packages.
About BreezeTree Software, LLC
BreezeTree Software, LLC (http://www.breezetree.com) was founded in 2005 with the mission of providing productivity tools for quality management. BreezeTree Software, headquartered in Sherwood, Oregon, has an aggressive plan to roll out a suite of flowcharting, process mapping, and value stream mapping tools in the coming year.
