By Dale Farris, Reviews Coordinator
Golden Triangle PC Club
April 2007

General Overview

allCLEAR Flowcharter is a windows based software application that gives you the tools to create professional flowcharts, deployment/relationship charts, process maps, decision trees and more.

Readers, take note of this: allCLEAR is NOT like any other flowchart software.

I have been a long time Visio user, as well as SmartDraw, and I have marveled at how much easier it is to use allCLEAR, especially when needing to create highly complex flow charts. The program's unique and highly impressive text-to-chart process is simply amazing, and it is a wonder that other flow charting programs do not also offer a similar approach to creating these types of charts. Of course, in order to make this text-to-chart process work, you will have to invest a little time learning the allCLEAR punctuation required to tell the program how to create the linked shapes in your flowchart. The program is also smart enough to know what type of standard flowchart shape to create at the next steps in the process, again depending on what type of textual punctuation you use when you are typing out your process.

When needing to create flowcharts fast, and especially when needing to estimate the value of processes, allCLEAR clearly shines.

What Makes allCLEAR Clearly Different?

You may have tried to use flowchart drawing software before and found the creation process slow, and making changes becomes a very lengthy process. allCLEAR is a different product that is designed from its roots to make the generation, editing, and publishing of flowcharts as efficient as possible. The allCLEAR difference is that you (the user) do NOT have to physically draw your flowchart, drag boxes, or connect lines. allCLEAR does a much better job of this for you.

This amazing capability is what helps set apart allCLEAR from all other flowcharting or any other charting / symbol / shape creating program now on the market. In this era of heated competition in software development, it is just about impossible for any program to be able to claim anything unique about its program. With allCLEAR, you definitely will be pleasantly surprised to find this text-to-chart functionality in the program, which is something not found in any other program.

Text To Chart - Flowcharts As Fast As You Can Type

What makes allCLEAR unique in the world of flowcharting software is its highly intelligent ability to create charts for you based on what you type in the program's text entering fields.

Discover the best processes to drive growth throughout your organization.

Imagine having the power to make smarter process change decisions by testing their impact first. Testing process changes in the real world is a risky proposition. Why invest valuable resources in an unproven process when you can prove changes with a virtual model first?

allCLEAR enables you to try different What-If scenarios and simulations without actually experimenting with the real thing. By incorporating data into your analysis, you get a true bottom-line view of what's happening or would happen. Then, deploy your results to your staff, the executive team and stakeholders throughout your enterprise to win buy-in for the new process.

Text To Chart is a unique system to allCLEAR whereby you type your process in plain text and the software automatically builds your flowchart.

The main interface of allCLEAR is made up of 3 parts. The toolbar is up at the top of the screen and this gives you quick access to many common features and shortcuts. This also hosts the drop-down menus which allow you to control every aspect of your chart.

The editor window on the right is where you enter your textual description of your process. This then draws your chart automatically in the Diagram window on the left.

allCLEAR does not restrict you to just using the text-to-chart features of the software. The program also gives you a more traditional drag and drop facility. With the "Diagrammer," you could also drag and drop structures to your chart directly in the diagram window.

Utilizing deployment tables in allCLEAR is child's play. The allCLEAR interfaces are designed to be intuitive and should be very easy to understand while still providing the additional power and features you would expect from a package of this caliber

These powerful and unique features make using allCLEAR fast, easy to use, and powerful. With allCLEAR you can forget about traditional methods of drawing flowcharts. With allCLEAR, you are firmly in control of your process diagrams, and the program gives you the tools to produce flowcharts quickly and professionally every time.

allCLEAR text-to-chart functions are unmatched in any other product capable of producing flowcharts. In my opinion, I think this feature alone makes allCLEAR an incredibly powerful application that will save you hours in creating your charts.

allCLEAR Delivers:

Quick Diagram Creation
allCLEAR has unique built in functionality to turn your text process into a diagram. allCLEAR is the fastest flowchart software product on the market!

Easy Amendments
allCLEAR is code driven and can rebuild the flowchart in a split second. This makes amendments a simple case of updating the existing logic. allCLEAR will reformat the chart automatically to include the changes. allCLEAR is the only software on the market that makes updating your flowcharts this simple.

Process Analysis
allCLEAR is more than a great tool for building your flowcharts. The program also offers unparalleled analysis of processes, a feature not offered in any other software at this price level.

Testing Processes and Process Change

Discover the best processes to drive growth throughout your organization. Imagine having the power to make smarter process change decisions by testing their impact first. Testing process changes in the real world is a risky proposition. Why invest valuable resources in an unproven process when you can prove changes with a virtual model first?

allCLEAR enables you to try different scenarios and simulations without actually experimenting with the real thing. By incorporating data into your analysis, you get a true bottom-line view of what's happening or would happen. Then, deploy your results to your staff, the executive team and stakeholders throughout your enterprise to win buy-in for the new process.

allCLEAR Versions

allCLEAR comes in three versions.

allCLEAR Flowcharter
Flowcharter is capable of drawing all tree diagrams and organizational charts, as well as any flow diagrams thinkable! It's the fastest and easiest flowcharting tool you will find.

How many flowcharting tools let you drag and drop entire flow structures, not just boxes?

How many flowcharting tools join all your arrows and align all your boxes, automatically?

If you've missed a step, or even lots of steps, how long should it take to amend? 10 minutes? 20 minutes? More like an hour!

allCLEAR will sort it within SECONDS and the program instantly re-aligns everything. allCLEAR has been in production for several years and with each new release it has evolved. Now, in it's 7th major version, allCLEAR represents the culmination of years of research, customer feedback and dedicated ongoing development.

allCLEAR is the most comprehensive, easy to use and powerful software for producing flowcharts, organization charts, decision tree diagrams, fishbone diagrams and process maps.

Not just flowcharts. Clever flowcharts!
With allCLEAR, producing your diagram is easy, but it will also style your diagram in a multitude of ways. You also get linking ability, which means you can attach anything to a box, whether it's a document, a URL, an application - it will even attach a whole new allCLEAR diagram to a box!

When the diagram is distributed, your process is extremely comprehensible to readers, as all the additional information they need is right there at their fingertips!

Multiple Levels
Don't clutter up a process diagram with awkward sub-processes. allCLEAR supports multiple layers in the same diagram. An allCLEAR file can be hundreds of layers deep if required. Simply add the layers at a mouse click and link the boxes between them. No need for multiple files and extra documents. Encompass it all in an allCLEAR diagram!

Professional features
Create deployment tables or swim lanes quickly using the icon toolbar. Edit and format them as easily as everything else. Using the simplistic right-click menu, customize all of your diagrams to your presentation style.

As well as flowcharts, tree and organizational charts, flowcharter gives you the ability to produce Fishbone diagrams, otherwise known as Cause and Effect or Ishakawa diagrams. This additional choice goes on to extend the diagramming potential of allCLEAR.

Process improvement power for a variety of applications
Redesign business processes for increased efficiencies in e-Business Planning. Plan e-commerce systems from the user experience on the web to order fulfillment.

Total Quality Management (TQM)
Document processes and apply continuous improvement.
Determine optimal process flows before implementing costly systems.

Create process maps, deployment/relationship charts, decision trees and more. Create diagrams by typing steps in the 'outliner' while allCLEAR automatically generates the chart.
Use punctuation as you list the steps to specify the flow, e.g. a line ending with "?" becomes a decision box.
Use automatic layout options for box alignment, box connections, multiple page layouts and more.
Drag and drop boxes for easy revisions.
Add notes, data and attachments to boxes.
Launch other applications, charts or web addresses from each box.

Save time with allCLEAR. Time is money. Therefore, using allCLEAR will save you money, because the time saving features will save you up to 80% of time compared to other flowchart creation software such as Microsoft Visio and Smartdraw.

For those professionals that use flowcharts in their daily lives, the software to produce the diagrams has generally been cumbersome to use and producing flowcharts soon becomes a chore! This knowledge comes from consultants, business professionals and individuals every day and the message is clear. These professionals need software to produce flowcharts quickly. They need the ability to make amendments easily without having to drag boxes around to fit, and they need ways to share the results with their team members, customers, management teams and shop floor workers.

allCLEAR takes care of all of this and SUBSTANTIALLY more and at a price LOWER than top competitor tools.

allCLEAR makes light work of all types of flowchart, and goes beyond the boundaries of other software by providing an intuitive interface that results in up to 80% time savings when compared to Visio and SmartDraw. allCLEAR also has professional level features, such as multi-layer flowcharts, linking from any "box" to an attachment such as a Word document, another flowchart or virtually any other type of electronic file.

The company also distributes the allCLEAR "clearVIEWER" application which is a freely downloadable file that can be installed royalty free on any computer to open the allCLEAR flowcharts, step through processes and so on. Of course, you don't have to use clearVIEWER to view the charts. You can also export from allCLEAR in a number of graphical formats (including vector images) or output straight to your internet/intranet with the HTML Export wizard.

allCLEAR Analyzer
Analyzer has all the diagramming capabilities of Flowcharter, and has taken it to a whole new level of simulation and analysis.

Take allCLEAR flowcharter, add full statistical process analysis, simulation and dozens more data-aware features and allCLEAR Analyzer is born.

allCLEAR Analyzer gives you the power you need to:

Automatically calculate all possible paths

Automatically highlight optimal and critical paths Identify the most likely path your process will take given the probabilities you enter

Combine different paths and analyze them together

Analyze paths using multiple start and end boxes

Automatically keep a history of all your analyses for easy reference

Use the 'Work' spreadsheet for scratch computations without having to leave allCLEAR to use a separate spreadsheet program

Use data structure templates to quickly setup the analysis of your processes

Use the ODBC wizard to access existing process data

Keep track of your analysis, simulation and manual paths separately

Record multiple scenarios for comparison

Use deterministic simulation

Use probabilistic simulation using the Monte Carlo method

Plot bar, line, area, step, combination, horizontal bar, pie, XY(Scatter), radar, polar, bubble, hi-lo, 2 or 3 dimensional graphs of your analysis results

Use animation and play back paths

If you're serious about flowcharts, allCLEAR Analyzer is the only tool you will ever need. Why use allCLEAR Analyzer to analyze your processes? Because that is exactly what it is designed to do!

Make validated decisions with process analysis
Assigning data to the "boxes" of your diagram is a simple process of identifying your data fields, scrolling through the boxes to adjust the values and defining the probabilities at the decision points. Then the analysis or simulation is ready to run!

allCLEAR analyzes your diagram and finds all the paths through it. The animated display is particularly useful for viewers needing to know how to follow the process. All the statistics are shown in a table and the paths are highlighted on the chart.

You can review all the path data, totals and average analysis and allCLEAR can sort these into groups for you such as the most critical and optimal paths. By doing this, instant charts can be generated. The charts give a visual perspective on the analysis. As with most aspects of allCLEAR, the charts are easily customizable to fit the style of your work.

Process Simulation
The simulation option in allCLEAR gives you an incredibly powerful feature known as the “What If” scenario. What if John didn’t turn up for work tomorrow? What if Machine no:12 broke down? What if we cut the cost of this, how would that affect us? allCLEAR will simulate these scenarios to give you the consequences of these actions. It will enable you to have a true insight into your processes and how they could be optimized without costing you the time and money of doing it for real.

allCLEAR ORGcharter

ORGcharter is a fully comprehensive tool for creating tree diagrams. The focus of this product is on the ease and speed of not merely creating the diagrams but amending and formatting them as well.

The diagrams can be constructed in two different ways (or a combination of both!). Firstly by dragging and dropping entire structures from a diagram palette called the “Diagrammer.” This method is extremely user friendly considering there is no joining of lines or aligning of boxes, it’s all done automatically, as quickly as you can click the mouse!

Alternatively, build the chart using the Editor window. This is a scripting capability that draws the diagram for you from the text! Either describe your chart in the Editor, or just copy and paste existing text and the chart is automatically created!

Organizational charts
Tournament grids
Work breakdown structures
Family trees
Hierarchy layout diagrams
Other types of hierarchal structured documents

When all you need is a simple tool to produce your organization charts and hierarchy structures, allCLEAR ORGcharter is a great low-cost solution.

Features in allCLEAR Analyzer

The following features are found in the high-end allCLEAR Analyzer program:

Create process maps, deployment/relationship charts, decision trees and more

Create diagrams by typing steps into the 'outliner' while allCLEAR automatically generates the chart

Use punctuation as you list the steps to specify the flow, e.g. a line ending with "?" becomes a decision box

Use automatic layout options for box alignment, box connections, multi-layered layouts and more

Drag and drop boxes for easy revisions

Add notes, data and attachments to boxes

Launch other applications, charts or web addresses from each box

Automatically calculate all possible paths

Automatically highlight optimal and critical paths Identify the most likely path your process will take given the probabilities you enter

Combine different paths and analyze them together

Analyze paths using multiple start and end boxes

Automatically keep a history of all your analyses for easy reference

Use the 'Work' spreadsheet for scratch computations without having to leave allCLEAR to use a separate spreadsheet program

Use data structure templates to quickly setup the analysis of your processes

Use the ODBC wizard to access existing process data

Keep track of your analysis, simulation and manual paths separately

Record multiple scenarios for comparison

Use deterministic simulation

Use probabilistic simulation using the Monte Carlo method

Plot bar, line, area, step, combination, horizontal bar, pie, XY(scatter), radar, polar, bubble, hi-lo,2 or 3 dimensional graphs of your analysis results

Use animation and playback paths

Export your charts to HTML and publish it on your intranet or the web

Print any calculated path, graph, worksheet or process diagram

Distribute allCLEAR files through the free CLEARviewer

Import MS Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, dBase, ASCII text, windows metafiles, enhanced metafiles, clipart

Export HTML-web compatible, MS Excel, ASCII Text, Windows metafiles, enhanced metafiles, PNG(web compatible), JPEG(web compatible), windows bitmap, CGM Metafiles, Postscript files, Tagged Image Files (TIFF), Macintosh PICT files

Integration with OLE Server/Client 2.0, OLE Automation methods, Lotus notes FX Support

Help, online quick start help, online context sensitive help

Features in allCLEAR Flowcharter

The allCLEAR Flowcharter program includes all the above listed features, except for the following features that are NOT included in the allCLEAR Flowcharter program:

Automatically calculate all possible paths

Automatically highlight optimal and critical paths Identify the most likely path your process will take given the probabilities you enter

Combine different paths and analyze them together

Analyze paths using multiple start and end boxes

Automatically keep a history of all your analyses for easy reference

Use the 'Work' spreadsheet for scratch computations without having to leave allCLEAR to use a separate spreadsheet program

Use data structure templates to quickly setup the analysis of your processes

Use the ODBC wizard to access existing process data

Keep track of your analysis, simulation and manual paths separately

Record multiple scenarios for comparison

Use deterministic simulation

Use probabilistic simulation using the Monte Carlo method

Plot bar, line, area, step, combination, horizontal bar, pie, XY(scatter), radar, polar, bubble, hi-lo,2 or 3 dimensional graphs of your analysis results

Use animation and playback paths

Use in Organizations

Any organization that is involved in any of the various quality improvement processes most definitely will realize great value when implementing allCLEAR in their organizations. The program is tailor-made for companies needing to keep control of their processes, and especially those wanting to analyze their processes. With allCLEAR, the text-to-chart functionality alone makes the purchase of the program a surety.

Target Customers

The key staff most likely to use allCLEAR heavily include all quality professionals, as well as all engineers, and financial staff. The program will also be of great value to other staff who need to create simple flow charts or organizational charts, but the high end functionality of allCLEAR Analyzer will really shine when used in more complex work teams or larger companies more inclined to keep financial tabs on their processes.

Recommendation

Without a doubt, allCLEAR belongs in just about all organizations, especially businesses or engineering firms. Any organization interested in having greater control over their processes as well as a better understanding of the costs of their processes will find allCLEAR to be the tool of choice. allCLEAR provides unique functionality and features that are not found in Visio or SmartDraw, and I can easily recommend allCLEAR for anyone.

Price

$  98 - allCLEAR ORGcharter - single user
$315 - allCLEAR Flowcharter - single user
$778 - allCLEAR Analyzer - single user

Proquis also makes available special pricing for these version of allCLEAR for a network license for multiple users.

System Configuration Requirements

133MHZ processor
64MB RAM
100MB free hard disk space
Windows NT 4, 2000, XP, 2003 Server, Windows Vista

About Proquis Limited

Proquis Limited is a British company established in 1992. The company was set up to develop and market PROQUIS 9000, a modular quality management information application. The original PROQUIS product was written in 1991 following requests from a number of companies who were finding it difficult to control and benefit from BS5750 – the forerunner of ISO9000 in the UK.

In 1998 Proquis Inc. was established in the USA and is wholly owned by Proquis Ltd. It provides manufacturing, distribution and support for Proquis Ltd. products throughout the Americas. In October 2000 a development office was opened in Boston MA, USA when Proquis Ltd. acquired the worldwide license for the development and distribution of allCLEAR – an intelligent flowcharting, process mapping and analysis tool. The company has distributors on every continent as well as users in about 100 different countries, worldwide.

Proquis Inc. provides training facilities both on-site and at central locations for their North American customers. Proquis Limited provides these facilities in Europe including tiered lecture theatre facilities at the Sittingbourne Research Centre in Kent, UK. Their international distributors provide similar facilities in Africa, Australia and the Far East assisted by many resellers.

Proquis software now has a wide appeal covering many business management activities from document control to process mapping and re-engineering, from flow-charting to complaint management. Other software is also provided including data mining and analysis tools as well as training and consultancy from IT to ISO provided in conjunction with our many partners.

The launch of PROQUIS Enterprise (intranet/internet) in 2002 considerably broadened the appeal to other business managers with customers now including Unisys and Airbus Industries. The Enterprise edition specifically supports multi site / multi county operations required by these organizations. This product is highly configurable allowing it to be molded to suit most organizations.

For companies where IT infrastructure and support is more limited, this advanced product can be obtained in the form of managed services from Proquis Ltd. group or other providers. This enables very rapid deployment and benefit at a very modest monthly cost with no internal server and support service requirements.

Some of their customers include, IBM, Lockheed Martin, GE and Chase Manhattan, Black & Decker, Hansen Group, Nichols Aluminum, BAE Systems, Pentastar Aviation, Canon, Unisys, Airbus, US Department of Energy, BAT and the Veterans Association.

Contact

Robyn Repeta
Proquis, Inc.
1015 W.Wise Road, Suite 200/201
Schaumburg Illinois 60193
847-278-3230, ext. 204
FAX 847-278-3237
robyn.repeta@proquis.com
www.allclearonline.com