MindManager is a mind mapping and project management tool that aims to boost users’ productivity. It is designed to facilitate a wide range of project types, and includes cross-platform functionality and 3rd party integrations.
I actually use all these tools for different purposes. OneNote isn't ideal, but it's on my Mac, PC and iPad and all the notes are seamlessly available everywhere. Mindjet is better for documenting things that can be grouped or put into hierarchies. Visio is (for me) a …
Stands ahead of the competition; native compatibility and robustness of solution make it the tool of choice. OmniGraffle's price and level of functionality surpass the alternatives.
It is well suited for a quick prototype of product/development planning to show relationships amongst the APIs used. This helps developers understand the impact of the product changes and identifies the need to update integration components to avoid erroneous deployments. I have not personally experienced a less appropriate scenario at the moment.
As I said earlier in this review, OmniGraffle does an excellent job with arcs if they are created in OmniGraffle. The same is not true if the drawing I'm working on was imported from Visio. In that case, I need to just start all over with the arc lines, and that is not often a reasonable option.
The ability to easily map out process flows for users of a wide range of tech comfort levels—The design is intuitive enough for even people with lower tech comfort levels to visually chart process flows. We have never had to do significant onboarding for less tech-savvy colleagues—this is a huge timesaver!
Collaborative mind mapping—OmniGraffle is a great platform to get together with people and brainstorm ideas in the early stages of a project, then link ideas together to create visual relationships to inform business and product design decisions.
Communicating strategy to stakeholders—Communicating the complexities of a workflow to stakeholders is a lot easier and more effective, with a diagram that clearly shows the relationships between factors rather than showing them a PowerPoint that, because of its slide-by-slide nature, makes it difficult to consistently show how different factors play into an overall workflow.
There should be some more functionality in the Notes window, such as a "Paste Special " Icon in the notes area to maintain format control.
Although I create many of my own Web export templates, an add-on for web export design would be great, as I regularly create Interactive Electronic Technical Publications (IETP) in HTML export format.
The ability to sync Map shortcuts between devices would also be welcome. I use MM on three devices, and I have to add or amend the Map list individually. My maps are on OneDrive, so using them should not be that hard if they are cloud-based.
No support for team collaboration. I would really like to see a way to share files to iCloud so that others can access and edit.
Better print settings. If you're trying to print a document across many pages, it's not easy to make this happen.
No ability to pre-configure settings. For example, I have to manually change the unit of measure from "inches" to "pixels" when I create a new document, would like the ability to change that fundamentally.
I feel the main issues of the old Mindjet seem to be gone with the Corel purchase. With the huge advance of sharing via browser HTML even 1 user can affect many. And, actually, using MM kind of forced my rigid brain to rethink how I categorize and classify information/projects.
The idea of paying $69USD for an annual cost is more than fair and a great model for Corel/Mindjet to keep rolling out improvements!
MindManager is very intuitive. The user interface is not cluttered and the ribbon icons are easy to understand. Several excellent "how-to" videos are available on the MindManager site as well as on YouTube. MindManager starts quickly and the user interface is very responsive. Launching other programs from MindManager such as Excel is very fast and issue free. The browsing feature is lightning fast. The drag-and-drop capability is also very fast and reliable.
The application is quick and responsive. We are able to produce mindmaps and reports with ease. The program is not complicated at all and integrates well with software and programs like Microsoft Outlook and Teams, which we truly appreciate.
I have called technical support a few times. During the COVID Crisis, I called a few times repeatedly due to a rush request. The technical support guy called me back in minutes. He somehow knew that I had called repeatedly and wanted to make sure my issue was resolved immediately
The videos are not well categorized...I had to do a bit of digging to get what I wanted and many videos on older versions. If Mindjet was to improve the titles used that would help.
MindManager stands out for its wide range of export options, customization and how they have enriched the format over time. As a constantly evolving tool, and having tried others, I consider it superior for the abovementioned reasons. Its cross-platform nature has been decisive, and although there are many alternatives in the form of web applications or the like, MindManager presents itself as a more complete and robust option.
Because we're primarily a Mac shop, Visio was a non-starter. (It's monstrously complex compared to OmniGraffle, which works against the quick-and-dirty just-enough-documentation ideal common on agile teams.) We've used draw.io on internal projects and when coordinating with external teams, but a web-based tool was too awkward for heavy use and bogged down with complex documents. For us, OmniGraffle sits in the "sweet spot" between complex data-driven modeling tools and lightweight "drawing" programs that force too much manual labor when doing heavy diagramming work.
MindManager allowed me to impress my audience by presenting complex cyber-security and information security concepts in a different and straightforward way. It meant income as instructor since I got the same diploma engagement three times in a row with the Mexico City government.
In March 2021, the CEO of GSB Solutions, a former employer, invited me to design an innovation program for the company. I used MindManager to create the program, explain the concepts, and the implementation plan. All in one mind map. After presenting it to the CEO, I was promoted from Operations Coordinator —a part-time position— to Innovation Manager —a full-time position— earning four times my initial salary. The same mind map served to visually manage the program for 18 months.
I've created multiple OmniGraffle template files that I use constantly. I create covers for our proposals in OmniGraffle with pictures of the the client's buildings or sites. All I need to do is drag and drop the image into the template, change the title and client name and address accordingly and it's ready to go.
Using templates in OmniGraffle has saved lots of time.
Using OmniGraffle to design drawing details for construction documents has allowed us to land projects, purchase orders and new clients to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
