What is the best way to use UML 2.0 in Visio 2003?

Question

Visio 2003 uses UML 1.4, which means that some stereotypes from UML 2.0 simply don't exist, and they need to be modeled by freehand drawing (I may as well be using Photoshop). Does anyone know of an update from Microsoft or an addon to include UML 2.0 (complete - not just class diagrams) in Visio 2003?

I found this package: http://www.sdl.sandrila.co.uk/ but judging by their "example" screenshots, I'm going to stay away. If they don't know how to use UML, I'd be surprised if they could implement it correctly ;)

Elva

Answer 1

This set of Visio stencils and templates for UML 2.0 is excellent:

http://softwarestencils.com/uml/index.html

Hahn

Answer 2

In case it wasn't clear, Microsoft will never update Visio support of UML. For some time, they have not considered Visio to be a Software Engineering tool.

I don't blame them. It didn't even do a good job with the parts of UML it "supported".

Golub

Visio was a CASE tool. At one time, after the purchased, Visio was "run" both by the Development and Office divisions of Microsoft. The "dev" version was Visio for Enterprise Architects, which, after a while, was only offered to those with MSDN Universal subscriptions. This version eventually lagged Office (2005 was based on Office XP), and was then killed. – Golub

Do you have a citation, preferably from Microsoft, about Visio not being a software engineering tool? It would be immensely helpful. – Sunbonnet

The "citation" was in a newsgroup. – Golub

Do you happen to have a link? I'll focus my search on newsgroups, but having a source for Visio not being considered a software engineering tool would be incredibly useful to me. – Sunbonnet

I found it: tech-archive.net/Archive/Visio/microsoft.public.visio.general/… – Golub

Thanks a lot for that. Very informative. +1 on the post, too, just for that link. – Sunbonnet

Answer 3

I'm using the UML 2.0 symbols from Pavel Hruby. Maybe you'll find them useful as well.

Byler

Answer 4

The nice thing about Visio is that it is just a drawing program and not a modeling environment. So just make up your own lines. Visio can draw just about any line time you can think of. But the real answer is the one already checked. Now that Microsoft "supports" UML maybe they will provide better tooling.

Nadabus

@Ted et. al.: Try VS2010 beta 1 and see if you think Microsoft has done better with UML - and please complain if they have not. – Golub

Answer 5

Those screenshots are only example diagrams, Sandrila SDL doesn't enforce that level of rigour to the diagrams.

Commercialize

Answer 6

I found this package: http://www.sdl.sandrila.co.uk/ but judging by their "example" screenshots, I'm going to stay away. If they don't know how to use UML, I'd be surprised if they could implement it correctly ;)

That seems a bit harsh - of the handful of screen-shots which are UML2 (as opposed to being examples of the other notations the tool supports, such as SDL, MCL and TTCN), which do you think are incorrect? It's quite ugly as diagrams go, and uses aliased fonts and lines, but that's a Visio feature rather than anything to do with the template.

In terms of what you can do with the UML, you are much better off using a real UML2 tool than Visio. Enterprise Architect is a cheap one which does have a real UML model behind it. (It would be nice to be able to say that the more expensive ones have fewer UI bugs and gotchas, but that isn't really the case, and most lag far behind the simpler graphical tools like OmniGraffle or Visio in polish and usability)

Gregggreggory

Actually, all three of the UML examples violate UML in some way. Most notably, the use case diagram has use cases that are outside the system, and the SSD has a lot of problems. The class diagram has a few incorrectly specified association roles. – Elva

The use case diagram doesn't show a system boundary, so what is inside or outside is your interpretation. The SD appears to mix domain and implementation, and is typical of one you'd seen in a early stage of a project - the customer submits an order, it goes to sales and accounting and then there's – Gregggreggory

a key generator in there too. Which is a WTF, but it's not syntactically incorrect UML. I can't see anything obviously syntactically wrong with the class diagram. None of them particularly commends the tool as a place to learn UML practice, but no tool will check your models for semantics. – Gregggreggory