Gliffy, a leading provider of online diagramming tools for enabling visually impactful, collaborative communications, released its Gliffy Confluence Plugin: Enterprise Edition at the 4th Annual Atlassian User Conference (Atlassian Summit 2012), May 30 in San Francisco, California.
Gliffy allows users to create great-looking, collaborative, web-based diagrams and flowcharts right on an Atlassian Confluence page. The new Enterprise Edition is anchored by Visio Imports, a feature that turns Visio (.vdx) XML drawings into living, collaborative diagrams that can be shared with the team and edited within the secure Confluence wiki. This makes diagramming capabilities accessible outside of the Microsoft Windows environment without losing valuable libraries of legacy drawings created with Visio.
“Visio Imports was the number one requested feature for our Confluence plugin,” said Chris Kohlhardt co-founder and CEO of Gliffy. “The import process is designed to keep drawings as close as possible to their original appearance, which is a great time-saver. Furthermore, by importing into Gliffy, the legacy Visio diagrams can, in essence, be brought to life so they can be shared with and edited by the entire team within a secure environment. That’s a tremendous breakthrough that takes visual collaborative communications to a whole new level of efficiency and effectiveness.”
“We love how Gliffy works within Confluence for creating clean visual collaboration, yet were challenged because there were Visio documents and elements that others created outside our Confluence environment that we needed to bring into our project areas in the wiki,” said William Long, project / product manager at data mining and analytic services organization, Fuzion Analytics. “With Gliffy now supporting the import of Visio documents, we can access and transform these standalone visual artifacts so they can be used for real powerful collaboration within Confluence.”
Another added benefit of the Gliffy diagramming plugin is cost-savings. Many companies buy “standalone” packages of Microsoft Visio Professional, which can run over $500 a seat. Diagrams created are typically saved as PDF files and forwarded as attachments to the team. These diagrams are often saved on a local hard drive instead of on the server.
With Gliffy Confluence Plugin: Enterprise Edition, an entire team of 500 can have Visio-like capability for less than $10 per seat. Files are created and stored within the secure Confluence wiki environment where team members can easily edit them and have a documented trail of changes made. Furthermore, to help with ramp-up and ease the transition from Microsoft Visio or other standalone programming tools, Gliffy Confluence Plugin: Enterprise Edition also includes concierge phone support.
Gliffy Confluence Plugin: Enterprise Edition is available through the Atlassian Plugin Exchange, under the Drawing category (listed alphabetically). Confluence administrators can also find it in the Plugin Manager in Confluence under the ‘Install’ tab. Gliffy is listed as the most ‘Popular’ Commercial Confluence Plugin in the Atlassian Marketplace.
The Gliffy Confluence Enterprise Edition is the newest licensing level for the Gliffy Confluence Plugin, a tightly integrated diagramming tool for Atlassian Confluence. Gliffy has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that combines the power of traditional desktop software with the lightweight, low learning curve, and flexible features of today’s most popular browser-based applications. Built for the demands of business users, its extensive shape library gives users a wide variety of industry-standard icons and graphics to strengthen the impact of their communications. The Enterprise Edition lets users import Visio XML drawings (.vdx), such as wireframes, flowcharts, network diagrams, and more, directly into Confluence pages.
Gliffy’s HTML5 viewer also improves functionality by enabling the following:
- Search results simplified with a friendly graphic preview that saves time over clicking through links that appeared in text-only results.
- More interactive diagrams on wiki pages. For example, users will be able to zoom and pan large diagrams, making it easier to see the details.
- “Live” text within diagrams can be selected, copied and pasted.
- Live links within diagrams to easily access relevant notes pertaining to the item being clicked. With Gliffy Confluence Plugin: Enterprise Edition, all diagrams and drawings are stored securely within Confluence and behind the company’s firewall.
Along with Gliffy Online, other products include fully featured, tightly integrated plug-ins for Atlassian’s Confluence and JIRA. Gliffy offers a powerful, cost-effective alternative to Visio, featuring an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that combines the power of traditional desktop software with the lightweight, low learning curve and flexible features of today’s most popular browser-based applications. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Gliffy is self-funded and privately held. More information is available at .
Visit the Gliffy website or read the full press release.