I have presented at the last four Microsoft Ignite conferences and was part way through the world-wide tour when this pandemic began. I was looking forward to visiting New Orleans for this years shindig, but, alas, we are now in a new world where in-person events are a fond memory. Fortunately, Microsoft have the tools to create an engaging online experience, and today I was able to see Mukul and Saurabh bring us all up to speed on on what has been delivered since last year, and what to expect in the next (see Visio – now and beyond ).
Microsoft Visio has been increasingly integrated with Microsoft Teams over the past few months, and now there is also some integration with Atlassian Confluence, just to show that Microsoft are no longer myopic. Indeed, they have also released AWS shapes for Visio too, for those companies that are not adopting Azure. The Visio Data Visualizer for Excel is now publicly available … for free, and self-service purchase of Visio Plan 1 and 2 is now possible.
The Visio web app continues to be enhanced with hyperlinks and some cool collaboration features, but maybe the most radical announcement was the forthcoming Microsoft Fluid Framework mind-map\brainstorm diagramming component that can then export to Visio. Is this the real future? Lightweight focussed diagramming components that can export seamlessly into the main Visio application? I think some of us used to to think that SmartArt in the main Office applications would provide that capability, but it was not to be….
It is interesting to note that there is no announcements for the Visio desktop app, apart from maybe the tantalising Visio Immersive that is annually pushed to the far right of the roadmap!
There are more Visio sessions planned for the virtual hub, but as far as I can tell, the links are not yet active…. more tomorrow!