Visio 2013: Where are the signal shapes?

Question

I am creating UML activity diagrams, I need to use send and accept signals but I can't seem to find it. I've tried to google for it but I can't seem to find anything. Does anyone know where I can find them or they dont exist in Visio?

Answer 1

It would be interesting to know why these two shapes are missing from UML Activity Diagram in Visio 2013. If I am correct Visio 2013 uses UML 2.4 (Visio 2010 UML 2.2), maybe that is the reason.

There are two ways I know to solve this problem. First is to copy the "UML Activity Stencil" from Visio 2010 and load it in Visio 2013 (I have not tried this). The second is to go here and download the UML 2.5 Visio 2013 stencils. Just follow the instructions and open the stencils in Visio 2013. Now you will be able to select and use send and accept signals.

Visio 2013 Signal Send and Receive Shapes (accept event action)

How to Install The UML 2.5 Stencil

Install: Unzip the files into a folder of your choice, for example, "C:\Users\\Documents\Custom Office Templates". Start Visio 2013. Click File/Options/Save. Insert full path of the folder with the UML template and stencils into the field “Default personal templates location”. Click OK. Note: if the field “Default personal templates location” already contains a path to some folder, move the Visio files into the folder specified in this field.

When you click File/New in Visio, the template “UML 2.5 Complete (Visio 2013)” will appear under PERSONAL tab. The PERSONAL tab is located between FEATURED and CATEGORIES, when you click File/New. If you use the template often, Visio will also place it into the FEATURED tab.