Linking Data to Visio Shapes in Code

One of the most useful capabilities of Visio Professional and Visio Plan 2 is to link external data to shapes and have them refreshed by changes in the data source. So, many of my solutions involve writing code to make these links, and they are covered with some VBA examples in my book, Mastering Data Visualization with Microsoft Visio Professional 2016, but I mostly write C# code in VSTO add-ins, so I thought it would be useful to demonstrate how easy it is to create data links by dropping a shape, and by adding links to an existing shape. The book, by the way, is still relevant for the current Visio Professional and Visio Plan 2 editions!

I have uploaded a short video to YouTube to demonstrate and included the LinqPad code listings below.

DropLinkedPerson

This code uses the selected data recordset to drop a Person master shape in the centre of the page, linked to a specified person row.

void Main()
{
	var vApp = MyExtensions.GetRunningVisio();
	if (vApp.ActiveDocument == null) return;
	if (vApp.ActivePage == null) return;

	Visio.Window win = vApp.ActiveWindow;
	Visio.Document doc = vApp.ActiveDocument;
	Visio.Page pag = vApp.ActivePage;
	int DiagramServices = doc.DiagramServicesEnabled;
	doc.DiagramServicesEnabled = (int)Visio.VisDiagramServices.visServiceAll;

	Visio.Window winDrs = 
		win.Windows.ItemFromID[(int)Visio.VisWinTypes.visWinIDExternalData];
	
	if (winDrs.Visible)
	{
		Visio.DataRecordset drs = winDrs.SelectedDataRecordset;
		if (drs != null)
		{
			var criteria = $"[Name] = 'Jim Kim'" ;
			var mst = doc.Masters["Person"];
			var x = 0.5 * pag.PageSheet.CellsU["PageWidth"].ResultIU;
			var y = 0.5 * pag.PageSheet.CellsU["PageHeight"].ResultIU;
			Array rowIDs = drs.GetDataRowIDs(criteria);
			for (int i = 0; i < rowIDs.Length; i++)
			{
				var shp = pag.DropLinked(mst,x,y,
					drs.ID,(int) rowIDs.GetValue(i),true);
			}
		}
	}
	doc.DiagramServicesEnabled = DiagramServices;
}

DropLinkedDepartmentPersonnel

This code uses the selected data recordset to drop Person master shapes for each person from a specified department.

void Main()
{
	var vApp = MyExtensions.GetRunningVisio();
	if (vApp.ActiveDocument == null) return;
	if (vApp.ActivePage == null) return;

	Visio.Window win = vApp.ActiveWindow;
	Visio.Document doc = vApp.ActiveDocument;
	Visio.Page pag = vApp.ActivePage;
	int DiagramServices = doc.DiagramServicesEnabled;
	doc.DiagramServicesEnabled = (int)Visio.VisDiagramServices.visServiceAll;

	Visio.Window winDrs = 
		win.Windows.ItemFromID[(int)Visio.VisWinTypes.visWinIDExternalData];
	
	if (winDrs.Visible)
	{
		Visio.DataRecordset drs = winDrs.SelectedDataRecordset;
		if (drs != null)
		{
			var criteria = $"[Department] = 'Marketing'" ;
			var mst = doc.Masters["Person"];
			var x = 0.5 * pag.PageSheet.CellsU["PageWidth"].ResultIU;
			var y = 0.5 * pag.PageSheet.CellsU["PageHeight"].ResultIU;
			
			Array rowIDs = drs.GetDataRowIDs(criteria);
			if (rowIDs.Length > 0)
			{
				var dY = y / rowIDs.Length;
				var undoScope = vApp.BeginUndoScope("Dropping linked shapes");
				for (int i = 0; i < rowIDs.Length; i++)
				{
					var shp = pag.DropLinked(mst, x, y + (i * dY),
						drs.ID, (int)rowIDs.GetValue(i), true);
				}
				vApp.EndUndoScope(undoScope,true);
			}
		}
	}
	doc.DiagramServicesEnabled = DiagramServices;
}

DropLinkedPersonInRoom

This code uses the selected data recordset to add a data link to a simple shape with Office Number text which is used to get a person row.

void Main()
{
	var vApp = MyExtensions.GetRunningVisio();
	if (vApp.ActiveDocument == null) return;
	if (vApp.ActivePage == null) return;

	Visio.Window win = vApp.ActiveWindow;
	Visio.Document doc = vApp.ActiveDocument;
	Visio.Page pag = vApp.ActivePage;
	
	if (win.Selection.Count == 0)
	{
		return;
	}
	
	var shp = win.Selection.PrimaryItem;
	var shpText = shp.Characters.Text.ToString();
	
	int.TryParse(shpText, out int off_nmbr);
	
	if (off_nmbr == 0)
	{
		return;
	}
	
	int DiagramServices = doc.DiagramServicesEnabled;
	doc.DiagramServicesEnabled = (int)Visio.VisDiagramServices.visServiceAll;

	
	Visio.Window winDrs =
		win.Windows.ItemFromID[(int)Visio.VisWinTypes.visWinIDExternalData];
	
	
	if (winDrs.Visible)
	{
		Visio.DataRecordset drs = winDrs.SelectedDataRecordset;
		if (drs != null)
		{
			var criteria = $"[Office_Number] = {off_nmbr}" ;
			Array rowIDs = drs.GetDataRowIDs(criteria);
			for (int i = 0; i < rowIDs.Length; i++)
			{
				shp.LinkToData(drs.ID, (int) rowIDs.GetValue(i),true);
			}
		}
	}
	doc.DiagramServicesEnabled = DiagramServices;
}

DropLinkedPersonnelInRooms

This code uses the selected data recordset to add a data link to selected simple shapes with Office Number text which is used to get a person row for each.

void Main()
{
	var vApp = MyExtensions.GetRunningVisio();
	if (vApp.ActiveDocument == null) return;
	if (vApp.ActivePage == null) return;

	Visio.Window win = vApp.ActiveWindow;
	Visio.Document doc = vApp.ActiveDocument;
	Visio.Page pag = vApp.ActivePage;
	
	if (win.Selection.Count == 0)
	{
		return;
	}
	var sel = win.Selection;
	int DiagramServices = doc.DiagramServicesEnabled;
	doc.DiagramServicesEnabled = (int)Visio.VisDiagramServices.visServiceAll;

	Visio.Window winDrs = 
		win.Windows.ItemFromID[(int)Visio.VisWinTypes.visWinIDExternalData];
	
	if (winDrs.Visible)
	{
		Visio.DataRecordset drs = winDrs.SelectedDataRecordset;
		if (drs != null)
		{
			var undoScope = vApp.BeginUndoScope("Adding data links to shapes");
			foreach (Visio.Shape shp in sel)
			{
				var shpText = shp.Characters.Text.ToString();
				int.TryParse(shpText, out int off_nmbr);
				if (off_nmbr != 0)
				{
					var criteria = $"[Office_Number] = {off_nmbr}";
					Array rowIDs = drs.GetDataRowIDs(criteria);
					for (int i = 0; i < rowIDs.Length; i++)
					{
						shp.LinkToData(drs.ID, (int)rowIDs.GetValue(i), false);
					}
				}
			}
			vApp.EndUndoScope(undoScope, true);
		}
	}
	doc.DiagramServicesEnabled = DiagramServices;
}

Note that I do not recommend using the ApplyDataGraphicsAfterLink = true argument for this particular code because Visio can take a while to insert DataGraphics into each shape, but the foreach loop does not wait for the previous shp to finish its update.

GetRunningVisio

This is the extension to get the running Visio application.

// MyExtensions
using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using LINQPad;
using Microsoft.Office.Interop.Visio;

public static Application GetRunningVisio()
{
	Application vApp = null;
	try
	{
		vApp = (Application)Marshal.GetActiveObject("Visio.Application");
	}
	catch (Exception ex)
	{
		Extensions.Dump<string>("Couldn't find running Visio instance", ex.Message);
	}
	return vApp;
}

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