Microsoft Visio is the leading business diagramming application worldwide, and is part of the Office 365 eco-system. It therefore has all of the document management and security credentials that goes with Microsoft 365 environment. But Visio is much more than just diagramming because it is a complete data visualization application, due to its smart shapes and programming interface. All of Visio shapes are controlled by their ShapeSheet, which contains formulas just like a worksheet in Excel, and can be edited in much the same way. If that is not enough, then there are application programmers interfaces (API) that can be utilised in Visio add-ins and applications, and even in web pages.
Custom Visio templates can speed up productivity dramatically, and really embody your business requirements and corporate branding.
Visio documents and shapes can be linked to data so that they always reflect the one truth by automatically updating the text, icons, databars, colors, and more, if necessary.
This will enable you to visualize your business in an intelligent and insightful way, that has never been previously possible. We can show you how to ensure that you are creating and utilizing these Visio data graphics in the most efficient manner.
Visio for Web can now be integrated in SharePoint pages or Teams to ensure that everybody can benefit from a visual interactive dashboard.
Latest blog articles about Visio
Moving Phases/Separators in Visio Cross-Functional Flowcharts?
I use Visio Cross-Functional Flowcharts a lot, but there is one thing that really bugs me … you can move function bands\swimlanes around, but you can’t move the phases\separators in the same way. The phases/separators are containers just like the function bands\swimlanes, so why can’t I move them? Actually, it is quite understandable when you…
Using Notepad++ to Edit Visio ShapeSheet formulas
Visio shapes get their smartness from the formulas that are entered into the ShapeSheet, but editing these formulas can be extremely tricky and prone to error because of the lack of a modern programmer’s interface. Formulas can be quite long (up to 64k characters) but even medium size ones like the one in User.GetWorkdays cell…
Adding a second Function header bar to Visio swimlanes
I was recently asked if a second function header bar can be added to the swimlanes in the cross-functional flowchart templates in Visio. Some swimlanes can get quite wide, so it can be useful to have a duplicate function header shape on the far-side too. It is quite simple to duplicate the existing function header…
More Parsing XML Data in Visio Shapes
My last article looked at parsing an XML string with a known structure and order of elements and attributes. This can be acceptable in some scenarios, but what if the elements or attributes are in a different order? Then it is necessary to use the element and attribute names rather than their index position. This…
Navigate to named areas in Visio with SS Plus
Many years ago, when I was an architect, I used a Unix CAD system with large buildings. I was able to navigate quickly to rectangular areas that I had named. Well, the Export to PowerPoint feature in Visio Plan 2 provides Slide Snippets, which are named areas that can be exported to PowerPoint. My SS…
Counting glued and connected shapes in Visio
I got a surprise in one of my projects when I counted the shapes glued together using the Shape.GluedShapes(…) method … the sum of the filtered glued shapes just didn’t add up to the unfiltered count. So, I thought I should check the Shape.ConnectedShapes(…) method too … and there is a scenario where that has…