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Excel

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Visio Data Visualizer Tips

The Microsoft Visio product team have released a great video introduction to the Visio Data Visualizer, but even that does not reveal all of its power. So, here are some tips about using the Microsoft Visio Data Visualizer add-in in Excel. Firstly, the add-in currently offers three different types of diagram, and each have a number of alternative layout arrangements.

  • Basic Flowchart – 4 layouts
  • Cross-Functional Flowchart – 5 layouts
  • Organization Chart – 5 layouts

Although these are the proposed diagram types, there is no reason why other types of data, such as network devices, cannot be used with any of them.

Sample Org Chart with Visio Data Visualizer in Excel
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Visio is NOT Vizio!

Update 1 : Microsoft read this post and immediately corrected the spelling so the following now works : https://adoption.microsoft.com/virtual-hub/search/?_sft_vh_product=microsoft-visio 🙂

Update 2 : Mr VisGuy! “spelt” is the same as “spelled” outside USA!

Aarghh! What kind of message is sent out if a company does not know how to spell the name of their own product? There is a make of TV in the States called Vizio, which is not the name of my favourite data-diagramming application, Visio. It may be pronounced the same, but believe me it is totally different. So, it is extremely disappointing that Microsoft have allowed their own product to be spelt incorrectly in the Virtual Hub in the Microsoft Ignite 2020 website.

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Assigning Visio Shapes to Layers from Excel Table

I work a lot with layers in Visio, and written an add-in, LayerManager, to assist, but I was asked an interesting question recently: How can shapes by assigned to layers automatically from a list in Excel? So, I thought I would present my solution. This particular request was for a Timeline diagram, where the Milestone shapes are to be on specific layers. So, I just used one of the samples provided with Visio.

  • Sample Timeline has no layers
  • Milestones are group shapes
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Using some Visio Shape Data in Visio for the Web

Like a lot of UK TV viewers last week, I watched Quiz, a drama about Major Charles Ingram who apparently cheated his way to the jackpot in Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Some of the questions that he was asked were quoted in that show, and I was surprised how easy the last two questions were for me, but that was probably because of my own education as a building architect. However, I decided to lookup the rest of the questions, and I would have fallen before getting to those questions unless my Phone-A-Friend could have helped me on one in particular. At the same time, I was thinking about the differences between Visio desktop and web editions (yeah, really!), so I have created a Visio document that contains all of the questions that the Major answered correctly. This document can be viewed by everyone and downloaded. If it is saved into OneDrive or SharePoint Online and then viewed online.

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Using CODE() and UNICODE() functions in Visio

Microsoft Visio does have CHAR() and UNICHAR() ShapeSheet functions, just like Excel, but it does not have the inverse CODE() and UNICODE() functions, unlike Excel. However, there is a way to create a formula in the Visio ShapeSheet to provide these functions.

The following worksheet demonstrates how the CHAR(), CODE(), UNICHAR(), and UNICODE() functions work in Excel.

ColumnFormula
Indexn
Char=IFERROR( CHAR(INT([@Index])),””)
Code=IFERROR( CODE([@Char]),””)
Unichar=UNICHAR(INT([@Index]))
Unicode=UNICODE([@Unichar])
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Visio news from MS Ignite 2019

Daniel, Scott, me and Michel at the Veeam party

Microsoft Ignite 2019 at the huge Orange County Conference Conference Center in Orlando is over for another year. 30,000 attendees over 6 days, and I have seen my first sunlight today since I arrived in Florida last Saturday! So, it is time to review just what was announced about Visio, and how much Visio is appreciated.

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