If you are one of the increasing number of Power BI users that have discovered that the Visio Visual gives you the great ability to include Visio diagrams in your dashboard, then you may have come across the following error, ‘We can’t open your file in Visio because it exceeds the shape count limit’ in Power BI’, when you try to embed a Visio document. This can be frustrating, but here is a deeper explanation of what is happening … and how you can usually overcome it.
Readers of my blog will know that I use the layers in Visio pages to change the display for different scenarios. My macro to toggle layers on/off has been very popular, and I have written an add-in to manage layers that is widely used. However, I was recently asked if the layer settings can be controlled from linked data. Linking data in Visio has been available in all desktop editions, except Standard, since 2007, and I have written many articles and two books extolling this feature, but I haven’t so far controlled layer settings with it, so this article describes how this can be done … as shown in the following screen recording!
I use layers in Visio a lot. Maybe it is because I originally used CAD, and created facilities and cable management layouts linked to data. I know that some of my fellow Visio MVPS don’t use layers very much at all, mainly because they create process diagrams, I guess, but careful use of layers in a diagram can provide multiple views of the same base information. However, Visio has a more complex layering system than any CAD program that I used, so I have always created my own layer management tools. I have decided to package my utility together as an add-in that others may want to use too.
I have made some short videos explain the issue with layers in Visio, and how I solved it.
What’s the issue with layers in Visio?
Making it simple to toggle layer settings
Saving and recalling multiple layer settings easily
The add-in can be downloaded from my company website : LayerManager
I have put some licensing into the add-in, but 30 days are allowed for free.
Here is some of the genesis of this add-in : Toggling layers on and off
A Visio user recently asked if it is possible to assign shapes to layers from a list. In his case, he has an Excel table which he has exported shapes and their text using Visio’s Shape Reports feature, to which he has added a column named Layer, and he wants to assign the shapes to these layers. In this article, I demonstrate how this can be done.
I decided to use my MVP Session Wheel diagram ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2012/06/29/mvp-sessions-wheel/ ) for this example because it already has some layers assigned.
I created a new Shape Report called Presenter Shapes, where I filtered all shapes on the current page to those where the Presenter Shape Data row exists, and the Presenter actually has a value:
[Read more…] about Assigning Shape Layers from a List in Visio
