The SmartPanel contains most of the essential tools you need to create a visual in SmartDraw. In particular, it contains the tools and symbols specific to the template you opened. If you chose a flowchart template, the tools and symbols will be related to flowcharts. If you chose a floor plan, the tools and symbols will help you create a floor plan.
It is located on the left side of a document or template you have open.
Collapse the SmartPanel
You can collapse and open the SmartPanel as needed using the arrow button in the top left.
Different Modes
The SmartPanel has four different views you can toggle. The Tools mode, signified by the toolbox in the Left Bar, contains the essential tool palettes and symbols to complete your diagram. At the top, the tool set is a generic palette of popular tools like drawing shapes, lines, and text. This is followed by a series of diagram specific tool palettes and symbols.
You can also switch it to Insert Content mode by clicking the + icon that lets you add blueprints of other diagram types to your workspace and generate diagrams from data.
In the Shape Data mode, you can add data to any shape.
In the Comments mode, you can view any comments added by team members to your visual.
Tools and Symbols Control
The default view of the SmartPanel will contain the most common tools and symbols used to make the selected diagram type. If you ever need to get back to this view, just click on the toolbox icon in the Left Bar.
At the top, the first palette contains popular generic tools like drawing shapes, lines, and text. This will be shared among all diagram types.
This is followed by a series of diagram specific tool palettes and symbols.
For example if you're drawing a flowchart, you'll see a tool palette for adding swimlanes, one for controlling spacing, and one for adding sub-processes. Each tool palette can be opened and collapsed as needed.
You'll also see a library of relevant flowchart symbols and you can search for additional symbols.
If you started with a floor plan template, your tool palettes and symbols in your SmartPanel will look very different.
The individual tool palettes on the SmartPanel can be expanded and closed as needed.
The tool palettes are also context aware. If you have multiple different types of diagrams in your workspace, selecting them will switch the tool palettes and symbols to the relevant types. For example, you can have a workspace that contains a mind map, flowchart, and org chart. Selecting a specific diagram, will select the corresponding tool set in the SmartPanel.
In the screenshot below, you can see a workspace with four different diagram types. When the org chart is selected, you'll see the relevant org chart tools appear in the SmartPanel.
Insert Content Control
The + menu lets you insert many different diagram blueprints into a single workspace. Each blueprint is added to your document inside a container that you can move around easily. There are currently three types of visuals you can add from this control: common diagrams, whiteboarding style visuals, and data visualizers.
You can add common diagram types such as:
- Flowcharts
- Org charts
- Mind maps
- Decision trees
- Gantt charts
- and more
You can also add whiteboarding content like:
- Kanban boards
- Roadmaps
- PI boards
- Retrospectives
- Customer journey maps
- Sticky notes for brainwriting
- and more
You can also use this menu to generate a diagram from data using Data Visualizers:
- Org charts
- Class diagrams
- AWS diagrams
- Azure diagrams
- Jira issues
- Charts
- Gauges
- ER diagrams
Once you have multiple diagrams in a single workspace, clicking on any specific blueprint will change the controls shown in the SmartPanel so you always have the right tools at your fingertips.
Note: You can't combine floor plans with other diagram types. Insert Content is not available on floor plan, landscape, and other scaled drawing types.
Shape Data Control
Any symbol can have shape data associated with it. Data is basically a set of fields and associated values. These show in the data panel and in a tool tip on the shape itself.
To add data to your floor plan, you'll first want to switch the SmartPanel to display data information instead of the Tool palettes. You can do this by clicking the database icon in the Left Bar.
Under Actions, you can choose to add a table by either creating a new data table or importing already existing data.
You can associate imported data with any shape. Select the shape first then in the Table tab, select the line of data you want to associate with the shape and click Attach Shape Data. Once the data is associated with a shape, there will be a green checkmark next to it.
You can edit data in the Data tab.
Learn more about Shape Data.Comments Control
Once comments have been added to your diagram, a Comments control will appear in the Left Bar represented by a small chat bubble icon.
Click the Comments control to see the latest comment on every shape in the document that has a comment. Each comment in this panel represents a shape in the diagram. Only the latest comment is shown for each shape. You can navigate between shapes by clicking on the comment in the panel. Selecting a comment will open a pop up showing you the entire comment thread over the relevant shape.