Great web based team for team collaboration when it comes to flow charts and other graphs
March 11, 2019
Great web based team for team collaboration when it comes to flow charts and other graphs
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Lucidchart
At our university, we use Lucidchart as part of our productivity apps tool package that we provide to staff, faculty, and students. This enables them to create graphs, flowcharts, org charts etc... by themselves without having an expert do it for them. We have users who have used it to create different kinds of charts and illustrations used in presentations, documentation, or for producing learning material. A great example is IT uses it to document the current process of departments before implementing a new system for them. This helps in laying out the user's current process and having it passed on to engineering and for good documentation for future reference.
- We like this tool because users can create all kinds of diagrams with different structures and designs where one can express their ideas clearly, which allows them to create plans and maps of great scope and with high acceptability, the creation of this type of diagrams is made of a simple way, if you already have knowledge in basic applications of the same purpose as Visio, what I like about this tool, is the graphics it has, since they are more adaptable, and in the final diagram, graphically they look better oriented, so I can create diagrams for all kinds of projects.
- Lucidchart makes diagramming and planning a solution easy and clear. We recently have had to diagram and plan a very large project that requires a lot of coordination and Lucidchart made it very easy for us to scope out the problem and communicate our needs to our company at large.
- The tools are succinct and easy to use. One of my favorite features is the find a feature tool. You type in the type of feature you are looking for and it pulls up a list of possible options. When you find what you want in the list and hover over it there is a mini tutorial that shows you exactly where that feature is at for the next time you would like to use it.Their closest competitor is probably Microsoft Visio, but again they don't come close at all. I've used both and Visio was an extremely frustrating experience.
- For an educational environment like ours, LucidChart is totally effective, it contains innumerable amounts of features that you can use as tools to make flow diagrams, organization charts, real-time collaboration, mental maps, ERD, UML, chat and group comments, among others. You can also create conferences with very attractive materials making them didactic. All this being very intuitive to use
- What I like most about this software is that it offers numerous templates and varieties of diagrams so it is a versatile tool that allows multiple functions to be performed from one place. Additionally, it works on the web so it is not necessary to install any program on the computer, and you can access it from any device with an internet connection, as well as, share the documents and in general, the work done with others users. It is also easy to use and during the creation of each diagram offers guides to use the program. Another notable aspect of this software is the possibility of integration with other commonly used applications such as Microsoft Word and Excel, which greatly facilitates the work of users.
- The process for browsing and managing uploaded user images seems a little off. For example, I frequently will use screen captures as graphical elements of a document. While LucidChart fully supports doing so, it might be helpful to have a more powerful interface when reviewing/browsing/selecting files that are serving duty as custom images.
- I create fairly involved sitemaps and love the sitemaps tools which let you type your hierarchy into the diagram in a popup and see that hierarchy anytime you click on a shape. However, the popup is small, and when I click on a shape in my wireframe, the popup doesn't jump to and highlight the item I've selected in the hierarchy. This makes it challenging to find the item I'm trying to work with in the popup hierarchy.
- The cost is a big deal, initially, Lucidchart was freemium and was free for us to use the team license which we made available to our users at the university. Without warning, they changed their license structure and began charging for this. Now if our users want to have the same functionality they have to purchase a license or request for an education discount which is a tedious process. The price is a little on the high side, especially if you want to add more members to your Lucidcart team.
- Sometimes it takes time to load the documents, and depending on the complexity of the document that is being developed, it hangs up (you must have a good internet connection) if you do not have a connection, you can not use this software.
- Sometimes it can be frustrating to format shapes and resize them at times. While the software is fairly user friendly I have definitely gotten frustrated at times trying to resize images and have had issues when I was trying to connect certain processes to another and the program picks the wrong shape to connect to. I also wish it was a bit easier to print out these charts, but I don't think it's very fair to blame the software on that since everyone's charts are going to vary by width/size so it's up to the user to format it for printing.
- Speeds up the process of preparing presentations. It also really helps gain more insight and allows for changes to be made at will. Regardless of what industry you are in - you could literally use a template/diagram etc - to gain further insight on other industries business models or even analyse a business prospect or potential new client and their strategies. Has saved our organization a lot of time when it comes to creating graphs and illustrations.
- Has tremendously improved our process of gathering requirements, process mapping and documenting business process reengineering. With Lucid chart, any of our Business Analyst can consult with users and customers and within minutes have a detailed diagram of their current process which they can share with our developers and engineering. Editing and making changes is super easy and can be done online by any team member that has access. This has made us more efficient because team members can work from anywhere as long as they have a reliable internet connection
- With this application we can facilitate the work, we have the need to create additional coordination in the production department, with which we will test what is being explored in Lucidchart and submit a proposal of height and that is approved by the meeting. This has streamlined our process and reduced the amount of time it takes in making key decisions.
- In IT, we get a lot of internal questions from different departments asking process related questions about products like Gmail, or whatdata we share with vendors. With Lucidchart I can easily create a flow chart to show the emails and send dates and on top of that, I can hyperlink a shape in the chart and take someone to a sample of the actual vendoe email.
Lucidchart is more lightweight than some of its competitors which is a good thing e.g: Adobe Illustrator. The good thing about Lucidchart is that it is web-based and diagrams can be worked on by all team members from anywhere and can collaborate on assigned tasks. It is relatively cheaper than Adobe Illustrator but does not have robust functionality. With its drag and drop feature, Lucidchart makes it the easiest to use amongst Users it's competitors. Users find it way user to use than other competing products.