Crossing boundaries through visualization: How a major European broadcaster scales with draw.io

A commitment to culture

Across the European landscape, our partner—a renowned public broadcaster—is known for its cultural diversity, high-quality multilingual content, and innovative programming. Operating at a massive scale, they produce hundreds of films annually and co-produce the majority of their acclaimed TV dramas, making their content available in more than six languages.

Their organizational mission is built on the idea of using media as a vital bridge to connect citizens. In a similar vein, the broadcaster seeks to create links and bridge gaps internally through a shared ability to visualize data for colleagues and teams working asynchronously across various departments.

In this blogpost, we look at how this media giant chose draw.io to be their go-to diagramming tool, and why they decided to migrate from Visio to draw.io.

Seeking a powerful, specialized solution

For the broadcaster, “Visualization is crucial, especially within the technology department, where we frequently create technical diagrams. We needed a solution that was both cost-effective and seamlessly integrated with Confluence.”

Around 30% of all their teams require visualization tools. In addition to technical diagrams, their core use cases include creating project flowcharts and process diagrams, along with illustrating complex organizational structures.

Moving to draw.io from Visio

Initially, the organization relied on Visio for its visualizations. However, they decided to move to draw.io for several strategic reasons: “It [draw.io] offered a more budget-friendly, better-integrated, and yet powerful alternative to meet our specific needs.” They further cited draw.io’s versatility and intuitive interface as primary drivers for the switch.

Because draw.io’s interface is fully customizable, users can choose between different editor layouts. This is ideal for a diverse media company with teams with varying requirements: technical teams may want to use the diagram editor to build precise technical diagrams, other creative teams may be looking for a more free-form way to visualize in a more minimalized interface with fewer options on display.

draw.io offers both a diagram editor and whiteboard editor. All the same great features you know and love in draw.io are present in both editors, however the whiteboard has a simplified interface, ensuring your diagram, mind map, or org chart remains the focus of the editor.

Seamless integration with Confluence

Confluence serves as the broadcaster’s single source of truth. Therefore, an essential requirement was that their visualization tool be natively integrated.

Because draw.io is a native app for Confluence, all diagramming data is securely stored within its own instance. This allows the broadcaster to maintain strict control over permissions: “While access to Confluence is available throughout the company, we’ve customized permissions to ensure specific departments have the appropriate level of access. This flexibility has enabled us to tailor Confluence to our diverse needs.”

Asynchronous collaboration across borders

A key priority for the broadcaster is ensuring that visualizations are up-to-date and accessible to all team members, regardless of their location.

draw.io is built for both real-time and asynchronous collaboration. When multiple colleagues collaborate on a diagram, they can see live cursors and changes. Furthermore, the revision history tool allows project managers to see exactly who edited a diagram and when, with the ability to revert to previous versions without affecting the rest of the Confluence page.

Revision history in draw.io

Last but not least: favorite draw.io feature and why?

When asked to pick a standout feature, the broadcaster’s team pointed to the extensive library of shapes and symbols: “This feature allows us to create great diagrams with ease, saving us valuable time and effort in our visualization projects.”

By using custom libraries, they can also add brand-specific assets like company logos, colleague headshots for org charts, and other bespoke shapes used regularly across their various media projects

Innovation through visualization

In short, migrating to draw.io has provided this European broadcaster with a versatile, cost-effective, and powerful diagramming solution. By integrating deeply with Confluence, they have enabled their teams to customize technical visualizations in a way that builds stronger links across departments.

If you are thinking about migrating to draw.io for your organization, get the full picture of the process and hear from others who have made the switch in our Whitepaper, The Great Migration.

Want to dive deeper into the world of draw.io? Access our linktr.ee page to follow us on social media and learn how others use draw.io, as well as pick up some helpful tips and tricks.