iGraphx Professional and iGrafx OrgCharter

Richard Price
18 July 2000

If you are an overworked business manager and need to create great looking charts in a hurry, the last thing you want to look at is iGrafx Professional.

iGrapfx Professional is part of the total iGrafx system solution from Micrografx which includes:

• iGrafx Business for creating simple business graphics
• iGrafx Share for sharing and adding graphics in some sort of network-enabled collaboration
• iGrafx Deploy, a network installer that allows customizable deployment options.

It certainly sounds like Micrografx means business and I was expecting iGrafx Professional to be a comprehensive package. There were 5 CDs in the box and an iGrafx Professional user's guide consisting of 218 pages.

OrgCharter was included separately and had no documentation. Perhaps Micrografx is trying to save money by forcing users to rely on the on-line help.

I thought the sensible thing to do would be to start with OrgCharter. However, the install program got the better of me. OrgCharter is an add-on and will not even install unless it finds iGrafx Professional on your system.

Once I had installed both programs, I found it frustrating trying to get a basic organisational chart happening while at the same time trying to figure out how the tools worked.

If OrgCharter had come with its own manual, it may have made the whole process a lot easier.

OrgCharter has an import wizard for creating organizational charts by importing data from a text file. Data can also be imported from an Access database, an Excel spreadsheet or an OutLook address file.

Following the instructions from the online help, I proceeded to create a comma delimited list of fictitious names. I thought this would be easy. I had used similar lists with early versions of Microsoft Word to test mail merge concepts.

Basically, each line in your text file represents one person in your organization. Each line must contain a minimum of three fields: the associate's name, the associate's employee id, and the associate's supervisor's employee id. You may include other fields as needed. The fields may appear in any order, but all lines must have the same order.

When I tried to import the text I got an error message telling me the delimiter character was incorrect. I tried changing the character separating the text. That didn't work. In frustration I even tried cutting and pasting the sample text provided in the on-line help and saving that as a text file. It didn't import either.

Heaven only knows how anyone will cope trying to create the intelligent iDiagrams that interact with users, databases and other applications.

It looks like the whole iGrafx system revolves around Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). ABC Flowcharter fans will probably have an advantage because iGrafx Professional is really the latest release for ABC Flowcharter 7.

Whatever it is, it's not what I would describe as an intelligent way to create business diagrams.

iGrafx supports Windows 95/98 and Windows NT 4.0. It runs on a Pentium or better. If you are using Windows NT you need 32 MB RAM (16 Windows 85/98) and 50 to 300 MB of hard disk space.

A number of these programs have found their way onto my desk recently and I am now beginning to understand why so many of the business charts I see look as if they have been created in PowerPoint.

iGrafx Professional AU$595
iGrafx OrgCharter AU$199

www.micrografx.com

By Richard Price, Editor, EnergyME.com

For information on getting a product reviewed email richard@energyme.com