Synthis Process Modeler - Today's Free File

Similar to Microsoft's venerable Project app, or (my favorite) FastTrack Schedule, Synthis Process Modeler is a flowcharting/process modeling/doc manager app that is free for the price of an email address. I said similar, becase this is more document and process management, and isn't really designed for timelines. It's pretty robust for a freeware app, but the catch is, for the true ISO9000 or Sarbanes-Oxley features, you'll wind up paying for a server edition, or at least some consulting time with Synthis. It's an interesting way to sell services (not that it's unique), giving away the client software to tantalize the user into the larger products or services. Would you like to super size that?

The Process Modeler itself looks like a pretty good product by itself, however. If you're a one-man show having to manage some project assets, or if you manage a smaller project, I can definitely see this as being useful. Process mapping is drag and drop, linking elements is a right-click away, and publishing to a website (the HTML anyway) is a simple menu button affair. It's hard to make process management exciting though, which I guess explains the monochromatic look of the app and it's icons. Worth a look for small teams though.

Tags: flowchart, freeware, iso9000, sarbanes oxley, SarbanesOxley