Most of my posts have been about using Visio as a data consumer by linking Visio shapes to data, but Visio can be the best place to create some data from. For example, an office layout can have personnel or equipment shapes within a workstation area, or space shapes are used to define areas which are used for calculating the space usage chargeback reports. There are non-facilities management related examples too, as the only consideration is what is the best way to create relationships, measure lengths, or calculate areas. These are all tasks that are best done by just moving, resizing, connecting or containing shapes interactively in the Visio interface. In this article I will explain how Microsoft Flow can be used update a data source simply from a Visio document.
[Read more…] about Updating data sources from Visio using MSFlow … easily!Shape Data
A Blackstar alphabet in Visio
I wrote an article last year for Microsoft, using Visio to explain some bits of messaging and encryption (see https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/uktechnet/2016/05/27/a-history-of-messaging-and-encryption/ ). I finished the article with an unexplained image of a word, well the solution was obviously “BOWIE”, as written on the cover of his final album, Blackstar, released exactly one year ago today.
Updates to MSIgnite Visio Session Documents
I will be leaving soon for Atlanta to the MS Ignite Conference, but first I checked the latest schedule and found some additions and some slight title changes, so I have updated the documents provided in my last two posts:
MS Ignite Conference 2016 Sessions in Visio
Visio Sessions at MS Ignite Conference 2016
Also, I have produced a short, silent video of the process to import your own Ignite Trip Report.docx from the MS Ignite website to Visio.
See you in Atlanta!
Visio Sessions at MS Ignite Conference 2016
I will be a co-presenter at the Microsoft Ignite Conference on 28th Sept. 2016 ( see Dive deep into advanced Data Visualization with Visio ) along with my fellow MVPs Scott Helmers and Ed Richard, and led by Sandeep Srivastava, from Microsoft. I am really looking forward to it because it will be a great opportunity to learn more about all of the exciting developments happening at Microsoft nowadays. Of course, I will also be showing off what we can do in Visio too, and to that end I have created a session location finder in Visio.
The MS Ignite Conference is an enormous 5 day event, with over 1300 sessions spread over three buildings and 5 floors. The conference website provides the opportunity to build your personal schedule, and to download a Word trip report. Unfortunately, this report does not include the rooms and the zone or building that they are in. Therefore, I used some of my facilities management experience and Visio to provide a multipage Visio document with building section and plans provide the location context for each session in my, or attendees, schedule.
The Visio document contains macros to import the Word report downloaded from the MS Ignite website, and for running a timer between a start and end time.
I have provided the Visio document for download*, so that it can be used by any attendees how have Visio Professional 2016 or Visio Pro for Office 365:
MS Ignite Trip Reporter.vsdm
I will explain how it all works in a future posting, but the document contains full instructions of how to use it, and it includes my current schedule of sessions so that it can be played with even by non-attendees.
*This document was updated with the up to date Session locations on 20 Sept. 2016
MS TechNet UK blog : A history of messaging and encryption
This is just a quick note to say that I have just had a blog post published on a Microsoft web-site. It is a very selective history of messaging and encryption, using Visio SmartShapes to demonstrate some aspects of this :
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/uktechnet/2016/05/27/a-history-of-messaging-and-encryption/
You too an visit The National Museum of Computing at http://www.tnmoc.org/
Getting better value from your process diagrams with Visio 2016
I will be presenting a one-hour webinar today at 1pm UK time entitled, Getting better value from your process diagrams with Visio 2016.
Process flow diagrams are amongst the most popular diagram types in Visio, but many users do not know some of the tips, tricks and techniques for getting the best out of Visio, in terms of productivity and efficiency.
This webinar covers understanding structured diagrams, enhancing shape data rows, hyperlinking, validation and exporting.
Follow this link to register : Microsoft Visio Webinar Series
