ConceptDraw Office gets an upgrade

 ConceptDraw Office has now been upgraded to version 8 and it contains 3 (well really 4) main packages: -

• ConceptDraw DIAGRAM v15
• ConceptDraw MINDMAP v13
• ConceptDraw PROJECT v12

There is also ConceptDraw STORE which offers access to various ConceptDraw solutions and upgrades to the main packages too.

Diagram offers professional-quality graphic solutions of all sorts for all businesses, Mindmaop is essential to strategic planning, knowledge and team management and Project provides a professional approach to portfolio and project management.

ConceptDraw Office is available both on Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS and are alternative offerings to Microsoft Visio and Project.

Though the applications can run standalone for basic primitives, the flexibility comes when the Solutions are added, all 215 of them. Many are free and can be downloaded via the Store, while some are paid for and new Solutions are being added all the time.

The categories of Solutions are: -

• Building Plans
• Business Infographics
• Business Processes
• Business Productivity
• Collaboration
• Computers and Networks
• Dashboards
• Diagrams
• Finance and Accounting
• Food and Beverage
• Graphs and Charts
• Health
• Illustrations
• Industrial Engineering
• Infographics
• Management
• Maps
• Marketing
• Project Management
• Quality Management
• Science and Education
• Software Development
• Sport
• Statistical Charts

Some of these are just building blocks, while others can be connected to data to produce charts/infographics based on the data.

Examples of some of the actual building blocks

Divided Bar Chart

Financial Infographics

Sport - Baseball Field

Above infographics may be static or utilise data (such as the divided bar chart) or just a picture like the baseball field.

The applications can import Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Project, Visio, Mindmanager, Xmind and Freemind documents and export pdf, images, Outline, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Project and Visio.

There still are differences between the Windows and macOS versions such as it's only possible to explore pdf layers on the Windows version of the software.

The STORE also allows upgrading the applications and solutions

It's also possible to purchase new solutions (when a new solution is published it will have a green flag on it)

The applications can be purchased individually or as ConceptDraw Office which contains all of them.

Single user pricing is as follows: -

• ConceptDraw OFFICE 8 £399 (but seems to be £239 now)
• ConceptDraw DIAGRAM 15 £159
• ConceptDraw PROJECT 12 £239
• ConceptDraw MINDMAP 13 £159
• ConceptDraw MINDMAP 13 & PROJECT 12 £319

So Office seems a bargain at the moment.

The solutions vary in price.

If you need a suite of applications that can do mind mapping and project planning and you don't want to go the Microsoft route, this could be for you.

ConceptDraw Office v6 is out

ConceptDraw Office is a suite of applications consisting of ConceptDraw DIAGRAM (v13), ConceptDraw MINDMAP (v11), ConceptDraw PROJECT (v10) and ConceptDraw STORE.

There's also an online service Concept BOOKS allowing sharing and collaborating of documents designed using ConceptDraw DIAGRAM and ConceptSraw PROJECT Server which does the same for collaborating online with ConceptDraw PROJECT.

The apps themselves are self-explanatory i.e. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM is for producing diagrams, MINDMAP fir mind mapping, brainstorming etc and PROJECT is like Visio from Microsoft and is for project managing things.

However the real power of ConceptDraw is the solutions that are available, some free and some paid for and there are a great many of them in-fact 158 free and 47 premium covering a vast array of topics.

The free solutions topics are: -

• Building Plans
• Business Processes
• Business Productivity
• Collaboration
• Computer and Networks
• Dashboards
• Diagrams
• Finance and Accounting
• Food and Beverage
• Graphs and Charts
• Health
• Illustration
• Industrial Engineering
• Infographics
• Management
• Maps
• Marketing
• Project
• Management
• Quality Management
• Science and Education
• Software Development
• Sport

The premium solutions cover the following topics: -

• Building Plans
• Business Infographics
• Business Processes
• Food and Beverage
• Health
• Management
• Marketing
• Packages
• Project Management
• Quality Management
• Software Development
• Statistical Charts

Some of the paid solution allow for dynamic infographics to be produced i.e. the information will change depending on data from various sources.

It's now possible to make animated gifs with Diagram in presentation mode align topics with a Mindmap and colour task completion in Project.

ConceptDraw Office is an invaluable tool for anyone in the presentation/networking/etc space and needs to provide visually vibrant documents and is £399 for the complete set (BOOKS is currently on a trial and Project Server is £99 per year). Even the free solutions will satisfy most users and the premium solutions for everyone else.

CS Odessa adds AWS components to Concept Draw Pro/Office

CS Odessa produce a drawing package that is compatible with Microsoft's Visio called Concept Draw Pro (also included in Concept Draw Office which also contains Concept Draw Project and Mindmap). As part of these packages they provide network diagrams and now have released a compete set of Amazon Web Services components allowing users to design and document their AWS configurations. The pack will cost $29 but is available free for a while for registered users of Concept Draw Pro or Office.

ConceptDraw Office mini review

ConceptDraw Office is a set of programs from CS Odessa (Computer Systems Odessa) which would indicate Ukraine origins.

There are three integrated components MindMap, Project and Draw (Pro) which can be purchased individually or as the combined (cheaper package) as ConceptDraw Office.

MindMap is just that and is really useful for brainstorming sessions and such like, however it's also pretty good for say putting a product launch together, working out what needs to go after what and different branches of what needs doing. The whole thing can then be exported into Project which will then produce a project plan. It will still need tweaking (for timescales/resources and such like) but there's the basics done for you.

Project is actually very similar to Microsoft Project, but CS Odessa have their InGyre system which allows the different tools to work together.

Concept Draw is similar to Microsoft Visio (and can import Visio files as can Project import MS Project files) it's also similar to Corel Draw, it can produce organisation charts, network diagrams and simple object drawing. Again it can link into ConceptDraw Project and MindMap.

There's both Windows and Mac versions available (where as Microsoft products are only available on Windows).

ConceptDraw isn't cheap (the package retails for £339) but you do get 3 solid packages for that and they're invaluable if you're a Mac user.

They can be purchased here