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Office365

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Reading the registry for Visio settings

I love writing Visio automation code, but I really don’t like writing setup & deployment scripts. There are so many variables : What Visio version, which edition? Which bitness (x86 or x64)? What are the user settings for the paths of stencils or templates?
So, I decided to write myself some C# functions that can be used in custom actions for an installation writing application, such as Advanced Installer. I think of the methods as being in one of three phases, Installation; Functionality and Configuration. The registry has three different areas to search within, Classes Root (HKCR); Local Machine (HKLM) and Current User (HKCU). In addition, the best way to get the true file version of Visio is to use FileInfo on the executable. The following screenshots are from a Cross-Functional Flowchart of the functions that get values for variables, and use them in other functions, until, eventually, the current user settings can be read.


Each of the functions I wrote handle the part of the registry that needs to be used. By that I mean that some settings for 64bit Visio on 64bit Windows will be in a different branch than 32bit Visio on 64bit Windows.
The first function gets the current version of the application associated with Visio drawings:

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Adding clicks to infographics with Visio visual for PowerBI

Office 365 is a truly remarkable success story, but it is often difficult to understand what each of the parts actually do, or what it is actually in each edition. Microsoft are always adding applications and services to the various editions, or retiring ones that have been superseded. If I can’t see it, I can’t understand it, so I was very interested to see the Periodic Table of Office 365 infographic created by Matt Wade, a SharePoint guru who keeps an eye on these changes ( see http://icsh.pt/O365Table ). It really helps in comprehending the current Office 365 applications and their purpose. Indeed, I have seen his graphic go through many iterations over the last few months, and it will continue to change. However, it was not clickable, and I am a visual data guy, so I contacted him, and offered to integrate his infographic into a Power BI now that the Visio custom visual is available. I then found out that there are several different language versions of his infographic out there on the web, translated by other SharePoint professionals in his network.

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Data Visualizer for Visio Pro for Office 365 – Part 2

I walked though the steps to create a Cross-Functional flowchart automatically from an Excel table in my last article ( Data Visualizer for #Visio Pro for Office 365 – Part 1 ), but I often prefer to use a relational data source, such as Access or SQL Server, to store and organise my data. Therefore, I describe how Excel‘s Get Data (nee PowerQuery) can be used to merge together the data in a relational data source as a single table suitable for Data Visualizer in Visio Pro for Office 365.

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Data Visualizer for Visio Pro for Office 365 – Part 1

Microsoft have just released Data Visualizer for Viso Pro for Office 365! This great new feature provides you with the ability to create diagrams from an Excel table automatically. It currently comes with two new templates for creating Basic or Cross-Functional flowcharts, but the feature can be used for many other different types of diagrams.

[Read more…] about Data Visualizer for Visio Pro for Office 365 – Part 1

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Managing People, Processes and Performance in PowerPoint? There is a better way!

I will be presenting a webcast on Thursday, March 23 | 12.00 to 13.00 (UTC) demonstrating how data-linked diagrams can provide a much more efficient and dynamic method for operational intelligence than PowerPoint.

Follow this  link to register : http://bit.ly/2m2sPOv
 

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Visio Pro for Office365 Partner Templates

It is becoming clear that Microsoft are making Visio Pro for Office365 (VPfO) their priority. Its update cadence is much quicker than the non-cloud versions of Visio, and there are some features that may not make it to them. A case in point is partner templates and sample diagrams. It appears that Categories has been renamed as Templates in VPfO and there is a new tab named Sample Diagrams. The Partner Templates are at the bottom of the Templates tab, and there is a Partner Sample Diagrams section too on the Sample Diagrams tab.


I am pleased to note that five of my templates made it into the Education category. Each of these templates are from earlier blog posts here!