How to Create a Flowchart in Doodly
Thursday, November 03, 2022
A flowchart describes the end-to-end flow of a particular activity. It helps us see the bigger picture of a process and organizes the tasks in chronological order. We often use Microsoft tools like PowerPoint or Visio to create a flowchart. But what if we want to incorporate it in our explainer video? Wouldn’t it be nice to see an animated hand drawing the flowchart as your voice-over play? Is that something that we can do in Doodly? The answer is a big YES!
In today’s blog, we will create a flowchart and explore the available flowchart symbols within Doodly. We will also look into other ways of finding symbols for your flowchart in case you can’t find the right one in Doodly.
Where To Start
Apart from the offices, flowcharts are used in various industries, including entertainment, engineering, the physical sciences, computer programming, and a lot more. We usually write our process flow on a whiteboard as we brainstorm with our friends and colleagues.
Let’s say you have drawn a flowchart on a whiteboard, and you want to use this in your explainer video. How do we get the drawings in Doodly? Well, there are actually two things we can do:
The first option we take a picture of it, save it on your computer, then import the image in Doodly. Don’t worry, this is not our finished product yet. We will use this image later.
The second option is similar to the first, but instead of directly taking a picture, you will draw your process flow on a clean sheet of paper first. After that, you take a picture of it and upload it to Doodly. This option is better, especially if the handwriting on the whiteboard is not quite readable.
Importing Flowchart to Doodly
Let’s look into the step-by-step process of importing an image in Doodly:
- We start by logging in, and from the main screen, click “Create New Video.”
- Go to the Assets panel, locate Props and click the blue “+” sign.
- Browse Files to import your handwritten flowchart and hit Continue after.
We will use the imported image as a guide as we create our flowchart within Doodly.
Now that we have imported our handwritten flowchart, we can start working on our first scene. But before that, let’s get to know the commonly used flowchart symbols.
Flowchart Symbols
There are several flowchart symbols used to illustrate a process, but the symbols that are commonly utilized are the following:
When working with flowcharts, it’s okay to create variations using different shapes or arrow styles. However, to make an easy-to-understand diagram, it is best to use the correct symbols for every step in your process. This will prevent confusion and make your visuals look more pleasing to the eye.
Doodling Flowchart
A. The First Scene
To start creating our flowchart, we first drag the imported image in our blank scene. As you can see, the handwriting and the lines are not pretty, but it’s okay. We will only use the imported chart as a guide in creating our flowchart within Doodly.
B. Doodly Shapes
Since we are making a flowchart, the props that we will use are mostly Shapes. There are several shapes that we can use within Doodly assets. To locate all these shapes, we go to the Props tab, and then under Categories, we select Shapes.
You will see that there are several shapes you can choose from. Each of these symbols has different styles too. Some have heavy borderlines, others have dotted or dashed lines.
C. Adding the First Asset.
Let’s now start building our chart. If you notice, our chart consists of several assets. We have shapes, texts, and arrows. Rearranging the layers to fix their order of appearance in our video would take time. Thus, it is important to add them in the correct order when placing the assets in our scene. The order on how they are added corresponds to how they will appear in our video.
The first symbol in our chart is an oval. This is the start of our process flow.
D. Adding Text
Next is to add the text. You can choose from the available fonts we have in Doodly. You can also import your preferred text format if you have any.
E. Adding the Arrow
Next is the arrow. We want the arrow to appear right after the text shows up, so we will add it right after the text.
Sometimes you have a preferred symbol that is not available in Doodly. Maybe you want your shapes to have dotted or dashed lines. Perhaps you want to use an arrow with a different color. Apart from Doodly’s assets, you can also look into Microsoft Word’s shapes and use them in Doodly.
Here’s how:
Exporting Flowchart Symbols from MS Word
1. Open MicrosoftWord and click the Insert tab.
2. Locate Shapes and click the dropdown to select the shape you want to use.
3. You will see a plus “+” cursor as you hover your mouse on the blank MS Word document. Click and drag your mouse to make the shape.
4. Select Shape Outline and edit your arrow’s weight, color, arrow tip, etc.
5. Once you’re done editing, click the shape and right-click. Choose Save as Picture and save the shape in your Downloads folder. You may want to export all the flowchart symbols you need before heading back to Doodly. That way, you don’t have to go back and forth between Doodly and MS Word.
Once you’re done saving all shapes, import it in Doodly. Don’t forget to rename them.
F. Make the Flowchart
Start working on your flowchart. Remember to add the symbols in the order you want them to appear on your video. Just copy and paste the shape or arrow if the asset you need already exists in your scene. There is no need to locate the asset and drag it back to your scene again.
G. Change the Duration.
We have several assets on the scene, and we don’t need them drawn for 3 seconds each as it may take too long. Having said that, we will change the animation duration of all assets to 1 second only.
H. Turn off Erase Mode.
I. Add Draw Path.
Since we just imported the Microsoft images, all shapes will be scribbled diagonally. We want our flowchart to be drawn correctly, so we will add a draw path to it. We will start with our oval. If you have two ovals in your scene, you don’t have to add a draw path to both ovals. Doodly will automatically apply the draw path to both.
J. Remove the Imported Image Chart.
Since we’re almost done with our presentation, we no longer need the flowchart guide we placed at the bottom layer of our scene. We need to remove it by deleting the image or turning its opacity to 0.
Let’s check out how our flowchart looks without our background guide chart:
As you can see, the symbols are not perfectly set yet. Some arrows are overlapping, and there’s wide space on both sides. We will try to maximize the space in our scene and adjust the assets.
When you’re happy with the result, you can start adding your voice-over. You may add a delay too based on the length of your spiel.
And that’s it!
That concludes our flowchart walkthrough in Doodly. We hope you enjoy our topic. Ready to create your flowchart? Happy doodling!🙂
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