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Visio Org Charts with Multiple Languages

I had an enquiry recently about displaying Organisation Charts with text in different languages. This set me thinking, and, if you have Visio Professional, then you can use Link Data to Shapes to add this capability to existing diagrams, but Visio Standard users can just the Org Chart Wizard.

I will use the OrgData.xls file that is provided in the <Program Files>\Microsoft Office\Office 15\Visio Content\<LCID>\ folder to demonstrate this. I have English US (1033) and Norwegian Bokmal (1044) available to me, as shown below:

In Englsih

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Making unused data-linked SharePoint columns in Visio invisible automatically

I described how and why I sometimes link a SharePoint document library to Visio documents in a previous article ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2015/02/10/displaying-sharepoint-document-library-column-values-on-visio-services-diagrams/). I mentioned that I always switch off the visibility of some columns because they are rarely needed in my Visio shapes as shape data rows. In this article, I present a VBA macro that can switch them off for you, therefore ensuring consistency.

The Link Data to Shapes feature in Visio does not allow for filtering of columns or rows when SharePoint lists are used as a data source. One answer is to create a view of the list in SharePoint to restrict the rows and some columns, but other columns still get pulled through to the External Data recordsets in Visio by default:

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The history of Visio

I have been a dedicated user and developer of Visio since 1996 when I got a week-long developer training course presented by Dave Edson (see http://vizfirst.sharepoint.com/Pages/MrDavidAEdsonCEO.aspx ) and Mark Davison in Paris. Previous to that, I had been working with CAD and databases (or spread sheets), but I had noticed either version 1 or 2 of Visio on a computer mag cover disk, and earmarked it for future investigation.

We have recently been made aware that Ted Johnson, one of the original founders, has a website with the history of Visio up to the acquisition by Microsoft in 1999 ( see http://www.visiocorp.info ). It is fascinating reading, and there are lots of faces that I met there, plus some that you should still be aware of ( eg Chris Roth, aka VisGuy http://www.visguy.com/ ).

Visio is a unique product, and the story of Visio shows that it is a well-loved one, with an enthusiastic team behind it, and an watchful community eager to see it further develop!

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Updating the file path of data linked Excel tables in Visio

Link Data to Shapes in Visio (not the Standard edition though) is great for visualizing information, and I often use a multi-worksheet Excel workbook that I create locally, and then wish to re-link to a copy of the workbook elsewhere, or even in Office365. This is a simple task if there are only one or two Excel tables involved, but can become tedious when there are many. So, this blog is presents an semi-automated method of achieving this.

Firstly I have an Excel workbook that I have many worksheets with tables of data on them. I named each worksheet, and used the Format As Table command on each.

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Displaying SharePoint Document Library Column Values on Visio Services Diagrams

It is often useful to be able to link text or graphics to the values in the SharePoint document library that a Visio diagram is stored in. A SharePoint Document library is just a list with columns and Visio 2013 documents can be linked to the data in SharePoint lists … and it will be automatically refreshable. This means that Approval Status changes, for example, can be displayed as text or icons. This article goes through the methodology of linking data from the SharePoint document library to the Visio document.

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