by Chandika Jayasundara

Creately is a new web-based collaborative diagramming tool for various design and diagramming needs from flowcharts, UML designs, org charts to business graphics like SWOT analysis and more.

To draw a parallel, Creately would be somewhat similar to Visio. Visio, part of the Microsoft suite of Office applications is a program that allows its users to create diagrams and models of things like flowcharts and processes.

 But where Visio stops Creately take off by putting all that functionality and features on the web. Creately allows our users to collaborate on diagrams with other users who may be miles away. We allow each user to embed their diagram or model into a web page for others to see and contribute.

Diagrams are just the start

Creately offers more than just basic diagramming. Using our Patent pending Knowledge Object technology diagrams are made intelligent graphical models of their real world counterparts.

As an example, in any business there are lots of processes and work-flows. Creately allows people with the knowledge of these processes to capture and easily share their knowledge. Decision making and communicating with co-workers becomes easier, less time consuming and more reliable.

Figure 1 Screenshot of Creately being used to create an Org Chart

Today businesses ranging from IT consulting, Management and Business consulting as well as students and teachers from around the world use Creately to create and share intelligent diagrams in just about any field.

Finally, our software is delivered over the Internet to our customers. This technology, known as ‘Software as a Service’ allows us to deliver Creately at lower prices compared to traditional software, and has been proven to work by companies such as Google, Salesforce.com and Zoho.com.

Features at a Glance

A Whole New Level Of Easy - We've put in a ton of great features, but kept the interface simple and neat. Our smart objects and stencils come with contextual features that only appear when you need them. And all this goodness is provided right in your Internet browser. We’ve focused on keeping the user interface simple and easy to use, while packing in the advanced features into neat contextual menus that only appear when you need them. This makes starting out with Creately very easy, while not limiting the capabilities of the application.

Figure 2 Contextual toolbar only appears when required, making Creately easy&fun to use

Instant Collaboration - Comment, Share, Email, Publish and Export your online diagrams and designs right from Creately – including Twitter integration and support for short URLs. And we're not just talking about JPGs here - you can export to PDF or XML to take your data out to other applications.

With out built-in Sharing, Commenting and multiple version control features, you will never need to worry about losing your data or the rationale for any change. All the information you need will always be with your diagram.

Figure 3 It’s easy to invite collaborators and publish your diagrams online

Figure 4 Built-in contextual commenting makes communication clearer - great for working with clients

Growing Base Of Design Objects - Our smart Knowledge Objects have built-in behavior and understand why they are on the canvas. With smarts objects for business, design and technical diagrams, you can do more with less. Today, Creately comes with over 400 objects ranging for UML design, UI Mockups, DB design, Networking and much more. This list is growing very quickly and we will soon be introducing more professionally designed objects to let you create beautiful diagrams.

Figure 5 Smart Objects for creating Flowcharts, UML, UI Mockups and much more

Diagrams With Smarts - Your diagrams and designs are not just pictures but data driven visual representations. Enter and export text or data from your designs to bring your designs to life. Update the data in your designs and watch your designs evolve. This is a unique patent-pending feature of Creately, that gives you live visual feedback to your diagrams as you change its data or properties. Besides, this also allows Creately to perform ‘Spell-Check’ for your diagrams, for example, warning you of an error if you draw a network diagram with 5 PCs connected to a 4-port router.

Figure 6 UML diagram captures all Attributes and Operations of a Class

Figure 7 Creately's Spell-Check for Design can help validate your diagrams

How is Creately doing?

Creately has been in development for almost 2 years. Work on it started mid 2007 after Chandika and his 2 co-founders Nick Foster and Charanjit Singh finished their post-graduate studies at the University of Melbourne. What started out as a winning entry to the Melbourne Business School Entrepreneurship Competition, has now turned into a leading edge web product that is the delight of users and the envy of competitors.

Since launching the Private Beta earlier this year, Creately has attracted over 5000 active users from around the world for the pilot program. Besides the fantastic feedback Creately has received, the product has been featured on numerous leading technology sites including ReadWriteWeb.com amongst others.

Creately will soon be out of Private Beta and will be offered as a subscription service to customers. However, we are firm believers in the Freemium model and will always offer a free version of Creately to our customers along with a Premium subscription product.

You can try Creately out now at http://creately.com

Who’s behind Creately

Creately has been developed by Cinergix Pty Ltd, a Melbourne-Sri Lanka company founded by Chandika Jayasundara, Nicholas Foster and Charanjit Singh, Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. Cinergix set up it’s Research&Development centre in Colombo over a year ago to start building Creately and all the engineering has been done right here at home. The local team is headed by CEO Chandika and CTO Hiraash Thawfeek, who has led the expert product development team in Sri Lanka. Today, Cinergix is expanding its operations in Colombo and is looking to hire bright young guns to join its R&D team. If you think you have what it takes to work at a cutting edge Internet startup – then drop us a line, we’d be happy to talk and you never know what it may turn up.