Why should you stop to read a blog post about tables in draw.io? After all, Confluence has its own table functionality, right? You’re probably more excited about creating stunning diagrams and energizing whiteboards!

And we get it! That being said, while you might not purchase draw.io for its table features, there are some compelling advantages to using draw.io for your table creation, instead of relying solely on Confluence’s built-in Table feature.

So, whether you’re already a draw.io user or considering a diagramming app, the Tables feature is an exciting addition that shouldn’t be overlooked. Enough chitchat, let’s jump right in!

What are the advantages of using a draw.io Table?

While Confluence provides a solid foundation for basic charting needs, let’s explore how draw.io Tables can elevate your experience and cater to specific requirements that go beyond the standard features provided by competing solutions.

Increased design options

“Form follows function”, as the saying goes. Nevertheless, your company has design guidelines, and you eat with your eyes first! In draw.io you have a full range of design options to choose from. For example, you can use the unique colors of your corporate design directly in your tables, liberating you from the constraints of standard color palettes found in other tools. What’s more, you can customize the size of cells and adjust the separators between rows and columns to your liking.

These options are what distinguish a table that is visually tailored to meet your corporate standards, from an ordinary one. You can find a comprehensive list of all your options on our YouTube channel in the playlist “Tables”.

“Cell-abrating” our features

With these notable strengths in mind, let’s take a look at concrete cases when it comes to table creation with draw.io. The magic word is ‘Relationships’. For tables made with draw.io, you can:

• easily visualize connections between cells
• highlight interdependencies
• even add comments directly within your table using virtual sticky notes.

Within our Whiteboard macro, you can further enhance your creativity by manually sketching your comments using the Brush tool.

Take a look at the example below to see how using tables for more complex constructs, like this cross-functional flowchart, promotes a better understanding of information, and empowers effective communication.

To me, the most beautiful blog posts start from conversations with you – our users. Today, we’re talking about customizing connection points, inspired by a question we received from a customer in a recent web demo:

Dealing with standardized connection points

In draw.io, I always use floating connectors (https://youtu.be/xM04I-WVXlE), if possible, as they allow me the most flexibility. But now I have a particular case. I am currently creating an architecture diagram. I want to use a server shape here, where the data streams always come in on the left side of the shape and leave it on the right side. We sometimes have a lot of incoming flows. I want them to be able to be linked quickly and cleanly. What is the best way to do that in draw.io?

Excellent question, for which we are happy to provide you with a use case. Floating connectors are the right choice for you in over 90% of cases (see Youtube video). However, as soon as you want to define the points of a shape you want to dock to individually, you should try our Connection Points feature.

Here’s how.

Select the desired shape with a secondary click. Now select the option Edit > Edit Connection Points. You can add or remove connection points according to your use case in the Connection Points menu. In the demo, the client only wanted to see connection points on the left and right sides, so we deleted the top and bottom rows. Then we added seven connection points on each side and aligned them to have the same spacing. Pro tip: If you delete the original connection points and then add the amount of desired connection points on the left, right, top and bottom, all of the new connection points are aligned automatically.

Now all data flows can be easily and quickly docked to the newly created connection points.

But that’s not all.

We have two additional features for you. Do you want to define connection points within a shape? No problem. Drag the connection point inside the shape and hit Apply.

Last but not least: Once you have configured your shape, add it to your scratchpad (https://drawio-app.com/scratchpad-your-helper-for-individual-diagramming-needs/), or create a custom library (https://drawio-app.com/draw-io-training-exercise-9-create-your-own-custom-library/) so that you and your colleagues can use it repeatedly.

Want to see this use case as a video tutorial? Our own Emily Fedor recently covered it in a short how-to on YouTube. Check it out:

• Have you ever had to revert a change in Confluence?
• Does your company operate under standards like ISO, FEC or FDA guidelines? In other words, do you need to track changes to content and processes?
• Would you like to be able to track content changes in Confluence over time to monitor the evolution of individual decisions?

If you answered “Yes!” to one or more of the questions above, then you probably already know about the Page History in Confluence. This feature is a powerful tool for tracking the progress of your Confluence page in a timeline, and to show you at a glance who made changes in your Confluence instance at which time; even better, you can undo those changes as necessary. Today, we are looking at the topic of revision history from a different perspective, namely, from the perspective of an app embedded in Confluence. Since visualized content is often an essential part of a Confluence page (visualizing process flows or architectures as diagrams, etc.), this dynamic data should also be traceable at any time. Short side note: We are using a diagram example from our Boston Consulting Group Matrix blog post.

Click on the horizontal dots in the upper right corner to access the More actions menu and choose Page history

Native Confluence Page history

For several years now, draw.io has been integrated into the page history of every Confluence page. What does this mean in concrete terms? From the moment of creation, every draw.io diagram version is tracked in the page history (see screenshot). Every published change to the diagram, including comments, is stored as a new page version in Confluence. Of course, data such as creator/worker and time of editing can be viewed at any time. This information ensures transparency and is therefore (not only) essential for audited companies.

This is already great, but…

What do I do if I discover an error in a diagram version, which is followed by further published versions with changes to the page’s text? In this case I would lose my textual changes when jumping back to the earlier version. How can I prevent this? No problem at all! Our engineers have added a second layer, which is even more powerful than the Confluence Page History. We call it Revision history and it can be viewed in the draw.io editor.

Here you can also see the activities of everyone who published changes on the diagram or whiteboard. You have a visual reference via revision history of what specifically was changed in the visualized content. But the best part is that you can use this feature to reset individual versions of the diagram or whiteboard WITHOUT resetting entire versions of your Confluence page. With this feature you have the flexibility to adjust your written content at the same time, or independently, while the history of the edits are maintained. This is something only a Confluence embedded solution like draw.io can offer you.

This blog is part of our I draw.io series, where our loyal band of users gets to tell us why they love draw.io. Follow us on social media to learn more about draw.io and hopefully pick up some tips and tricks.

(Want to skip right across to try the app? Get started now with draw.io on the Atlassian Marketplace).

UML or Unified Modelling language, was designed from the outset to avoid confusion and standardize diagramming for businesses across a huge spectrum of use cases. UML is more than just one diagram type. It’s a suite of many diagrams, each one tailored to suit or provide information to specific stakeholders in a project.

draw.io was designed from the outset to make diagramming easier, and UML is no exception.

Dominico Klawitter appreciates the power draw.io can bring to UML diagramming. He commented, “Love this tool….makes Use Case, UML or BPMN diagrams no effort at all with a perfect integration into confluence and Jira available”

But Dominico is not alone; Siddharth Kumar also commented, “draw.io needs no review, whoever has used it already knows that this is the best online tool for creating all sorts of design/architecture/UML diagrams including complex flow charts”

To Dominico and Siddharth, we agree that Universal Modelling Language is a pretty wide-ranging set of diagrams, requiring a wide-ranging diagramming tool to cover all the bases.

UML’s strength is that it is not tied to any specific programming language or business process, so the ideas and strategies presented using UML can be applied to any project. And this explains why UML offers so many different types of diagrams. A project may have many stakeholders, each requiring a different view or take. So UML allows the creation of many diagrams that can all reference the same project.

And as Dominico and Siddharth have already stated, draw.io has UML completely covered with multiple use cases and templates to get you and your team up and running quickly regardless of the diagram.

So with all of the above in mind, here are The three top tips to help improve your UML diagrams inside Confluence:

Targeting, know your audience

There are many different levels of complexity. Senior management may only require an overall view of a project, and too much detail is unnecessary and confusing. On the other hand, coders or developers who work at the coalface need much more fine detail.

Stakeholders

As mentioned, software development will have many stakeholders requiring a variety of UML diagrams. However, try to keep a standard notation or theme across your diagrams, helping other teams quickly recognize ideas and info when looking at other departments’ diagrams on a joint project.

Elegance and Flow

Avoid long names, abbreviations, and descriptions. Good relation names make sense when you read them out loud. Keep the diagram notations clear and straightforward. Also, Notes are your friend. Use as required. Use line jumps whenever two or more connecting lines need to cross. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to second-guess when lines intersect in a diagram. Is it a join or a jump?

Get to know draw.io

Keen to learn more? Visit our YouTube Channel for a constantly updated playlist of how-to videos. Check out our one-stop tutorial shop to pick up all the ins and outs of draw.io diagramming. Or book a free no-obligation demo to learn more about how draw.io can make life easier and more productive for you and everyone in (and outside) your company!

Happy diagramming!

This blog is part of our I draw.io series, which highlights our users’ stories about why they love draw.io. Follow us on social media where we are sharing more tips, tricks, and best practices from the draw.io community.

Helping designers visualize

draw.io’s versatile diagramming helps many software teams working in Confluence design a streamlined user experience. But, don’t take our word for it. Paul Baker, a dedicated draw.io user, commented, “I’ve used draw.io across Server and Cloud Confluence systems; it’s been instrumental for UI/UX designs and, really, any diagrams in general. Highly recommend.”

(Want to skip to trying the app for free? Get started with draw.io on the Atlassian Marketplace).

Building UX user flow diagrams in Confluence

UX/UI designers like Paul know the importance of UX in any application, and the ability to rapidly prototype an interface is vital in the early stages of development. From process flows to wireframing and mockups, draw.io has you covered.

One notably important UX diagram is the user flow, a specialized flowchart that highlight a user’s journey, and the creation of such a diagram can be broken down into stages:

1. Identify target users and create persona profiles.
2. Define the user’s objectives and create end goals.
3. Transform goals into task flows.
4. Create a user flow diagram.

We’ve used the example of a bike retailer below to show how to create an effective UX user flow diagram.

1. Identify the target user

Before the first line is drawn on a UX diagram, it’s critical that the target user has been identified. One common strategy at this stage is to develop customer personas, which are profiles that represent the kinds of users you expect to attract. Using a visual tool like draw.io can make this stage easier to comprehend quickly. For example, at a glance it’s clear in the example below that there are fewer “Professional” personas.

2. Define the user’s objectives

Now you know your customer personas, but what are they trying to do? The UX team next works to determine users’ end goals and map the user’s flow and touchpoints. If you’ve used draw.io, you know it’s Confluence’s best tool for creating flowcharts.

3. Transform goals into task flows

The personas have been identified, and we know what they are trying to do, so now we need to visualize the task flows they will use to solve their problems. These are typically also displayed as flowcharts. While you’re using draw.io to diagram the task flows, it’s the perfect time to use the draw.io brush tool to add or highlight ideas, and encourage your team to add comments as well.

4. Create the user flow diagram

Now it’s time to bring everything together in the user flow, which uses a flowchart to map out every route a customer could take on their journey towards their goals. This diagram will inform nearly every development decision that follows, so it is critical to get it right. In our example, we’re looking at the user flow through an advertising landing page.

UX diagrams have exploded in popularity in recent years as the business world has embraced the importance of the customer journey. It’s clear certain techniques in UX design can help make or break an app. Talented UX designers provide a meaningful and relevant experience to users and their efforts impact everything from the branding of the app right through to design and usability.

Has your team used draw.io to design an amazing UX or UI diagram? We would love to hear about it! Reach out to us on our social channels.

And, you can always visit the Atlassian Marketplace to find out more about draw.io.

draw.io’s continuing evolution

Every single feature in draw.io is carefully considered and thought out. It’s more than just software. It’s a tool designed to help real people work together in real-life scenarios. Our job is to make your job easier; that’s draw.io.

Do you like to dive deeper into the world of draw.io? Access our linktr.ee page to follow us on Social media and learn how others use draw.io and hopefully pick up some tips and tricks.

Born out of crisis situations like the Three Mile Island incident, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was created to coordinate disaster response across the USA.
FEMA is charged with protecting the country when disaster strikes, but how does FEMA communicate?

FEMA uses draw.io

For example, suppose there is a toxic chemical spill resulting from an accident. A simple flow chart can provide the front-line crews with the necessary information.
What is easier to digest in an emergency, a printed list of instructions or a flow chart?

Learn how draw.io can help you communicate more effectively.

How diagrams can help in a disaster

For example, suppose there is a toxic chemical spill resulting from an accident. A simple flow chart can provide the front-line crews with the necessary information. What is easier to digest in an emergency, a printed list of instructions or a flow chart?

Flow charts are so common, and so important to strategic communication, that draw.io features it as the first template after “blank” in our board builder.

RACI charts

Maybe it’s a security breach, and action needs to be taken. A RACI diagram can quickly lay out a plan of action.

• Responsible
• Accountable
• Consulted
• Informed

The RACI chart or RACI matrix has long been a popular tool in project management. It’s used to clarify roles and responsibilities for each task, milestone, and decision throughout a project.

The chart is designed to ensure clear communication and smooth workflows by informing each team member of who is in charge of what, eliminating confusion, and defining responsibility and accountability.

Regardless of the crisis or event, draw.io is a tool that lends itself to rapid diagramming and clear communication.

draw.io

If the U.S. government trusts draw.io for something as important as FEMA and the rapid exchange of crucial information, then maybe you should consider draw.io for your business needs.

Keen to learn more, visit our YouTube Channel for a constantly updated playlist of how-to videos.
Visit our one-stop tutorial shop to pick up all the ins and outs of draw.io diagramming.
Or book a free no-obligation demo to learn more about the limitless ways in which draw.io can make life easier and more productive for you and everyone in (and outside) your company!
Happy diagramming!

We all know that draw.io for Confluence helps you intuitively translate your thoughts and information into graphs, charts, and multitudes of other visual representations.  Help you more effectively communicate and share information in the business place. It’s fully integrated with Confluence, so you and your entire team can collaborate in creating diagrams and share them in real-time.

But when you’re brainstorming, you need that clean, uncluttered whiteboard. And now draw.io gives you just that along with a powerful but simplified editor. It’s the new draw.io board macro in Confluence Cloud, Confluence Data Center, and Confluence Server.

The new draw.io board macro lets you easily embed whiteboard-style diagrams in Confluence pages. It’s a new feature for draw.io’s integration with Confluence.  The new, best way to pluck those ideas from the air during a wild brainstorming session and document them quickly before they manage to fly away.

The details

When you add or edit a diagram using the draw.io board macro, it uses the sketch diagram editor theme, with the sketch shape and connector styles set as the default global style. The diagram editor has a white non-paginated background and no gridlines so it feels more like a whiteboard. It’s the ideal canvas for your team’s brilliant ideas, and thanks to its seamless integration with Confluence, your entire team can collaborate, view, add ideas, and share the results.

Everyone’s literally on the same page.

Same draw.io – Different channel

Just like the draw.io you know and love, board macro lets you easily select it while opening your Confluence page. You get access to all the most important menus when you need them. You can work with basic shapes or access an endless variety of shape libraries (either built-in or created by you). Use the format panel to add some color or tweak the style of your creations. You can even use your mouse to draw freehand images or text with a transparent background.

And, if you’re working in a sun-drenched conference room at high noon, or burning the midnight oil late into the night, draw.io board macro even offers an eye-friendly dark mode to keep the squinting and headaches to a minimum. You get all of the productivity with none of the distractions.

And, of course, you get all of the best-in-class security features that draw.io for Confluence already offers every day.

Security, collaboration, peace of mind, teamwork, and a tool that just works, intuitively to do what you need to get done.

See for yourself

Check out the video below for a first-hand peek at the features, ease of use, and just plain clean good looks that our board macro has to offer.

Links

• Whitepaper draw.io goes whiteboard
• Blog post Use the draw.io Board editor in agile retrospectives

And for more on how draw.io can help find the diagramming answers you need, visit our YouTube Channel, or book a free demo to learn all about the limitless possibilities of draw.io!

If you think about all the reasons you enjoy using draw.io, you may say that it’s because draw.io is feature-rich, easy to use, and constantly being improved upon.  You may have then asked yourself why we can offer draw.io at such competitive pricing.

Well, let us help you by answering that question!

There is either price leadership or quality leadership.  Right?

If you take a look at the diagramming apps that are currently available in the Atlassian Marketplace, you’ll see that we’re the price leader in that segment.  In the world of marketing, you’ll often hear the phrase, “You get what you pay for.”  You might even take that to mean that draw.io’s pricing means that it lacks in functionality, but you’d be wrong.

However, we won’t try and convince you with words – we’ll let draw.io’s facts speak for themselves.

• The revision of a diagram creates a new version of your Confluence page:
  We were able to bring you this feature a full year before other diagramming apps.
• Diagramming with draw.io is efficient:
  Please take a look at our video, where we show you how to create a cross-functional flowchart.  Now try it for yourself and compare how draw.io stacks up against other diagramming apps. The user-friendliness in draw.io is evident.
• Making draw.io your own:
  Need to tailor draw.io diagrams to suit your requirements? No problem! Customize your colors, fonts, and templates to fit what you need. Or perhaps you don’t need that, but instead, want access to an extensive library of 142 (and counting) ready-made templates – we’ve got you covered there too.

Shouldn’t you increase the price if what you’re offering is better than what’s out there?

Before we began, we asked ourselves some important questions:

• Do we consider the current pricing for similar apps to be fair?
• If an app offers better functionality, should it be more expensive?

Our answer to both those questions was no.  We want to work continuously on bringing new features to you to improve your user experience.  Our philosophy is simple:  visualization is essential, but every use case should have a reasonable price tag. Improvements to draw.io shouldn’t equal a price increase for you, the user. Our pricing scale and concept is the same one that existed when we were doing our research to enter the Atlassian ecosystem.

I wondered if I even needed to write about this topic at all.  Do we need to place so much emphasis on pricing? The thing is, it’s not just about sharing pricing, but about sharing our philosophy, too.   However, you can take a look at the draw.io vendor page in the Atlassian Marketplace to form your own opinion.  We also have a pricing page on our website.

Do you have questions about draw.io’s pricing? Please don’t hesitate to contact us! We love hearing from you.  Until next time, happy diagramming.

Do you enjoy riding bikes? I love it. There is nothing more beautiful than riding through nature for a few hours and forgetting the daily routine. I love it so much that I want to buy a new bike (of course, one with a carbon frame).  My wife wanted to know why it had to be carbon.  “A bike made out of aluminum will also get you up the mountain!”.  I told her that a carbon-frame bike is much lighter which in turn makes it much easier to get up that mountain, ride a longer tour, and ends with a great sense of achievement.  All of which leads to me going home in a great mood.  Everyone wins! We want you to win too so we’re bringing you our newest feature: the draw.io shape picker menu!

Now, not every situation in life can and should be handled like a marriage conversation in which you ask for permission to buy something. But the bottom line is, some solutions simply work well the way they are. Nevertheless, we strive for improvement. Why? Because we can.  draw.io has an amazingly simple and fast editor. Anyone who has ever created a flow chart with draw.io knows exactly what I am talking about. You have an existing shape and want to create a new shape with a permanent yet dynamic connection? Before you say “Oh, but that doesn’t sound easy!”.  Well, it is easy with draw.io – with one click!

Accessing and using the new shape picker menu

Adding shapes to your canvas was always easy.  You could choose a shape from the shape library by clicking on it or clicking and dragging it over to the exact position you wanted.  Now, we’ve made things even easier with our shape picker menu.

You can now just double click on the drawing area to open the shape picker menu and choose a shape.  The great thing is, you can also choose to add text directly as well as just the usual shapes.

Already have a shape on your canvas and now you want to add a new one with a connector?  Just as easy!  Hover over your existing shape until you see the light blue arrows.  Choose one of them, and click.  The shape picker menu will appear again, with a selection of shapes from our basic library.  Choose a shape by clicking and it will add the shape with the connector in one step.

Just like the bike, you have an upgraded version of a shape selection tool to help you diagram even faster and more efficiently.  The best thing is, it didn’t cost you a thing! Confluence Cloud customers get the new feature automatically, Server and Data Center users of draw.io for Confluence only need to update the app.

Were you on a staycation over the summer and missed out on hearing about some of our other new features?  We also added new, fresh color schemes for your shapes as well as an upgrade to our tables!

If you have any questions about the new feature or suggestions on how we can further improve, we always love hearing from our draw.io friends!  Until then, have fun picking your shapes and happy diagramming.