Visio Services

Published on March 26, 2015 by David Parker

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:

Published on February 10, 2015 by David Parker

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.

Published on January 25, 2015 by David Parker

Using SharePoint Choice Columns with Visio Services

Back in March 2014, I wrote about mapping SharePoint Column Types to Visio Shape Data Types ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2014/03/03/mapping-sharepoint-list-columns-to-visio-shape-data-types/ ), and I skipped over the remaining SharePoint column types that could not be directly mapped. I described Rich Text previously ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2014/11/14/using-sharepoint-rich-text-multiple-line-columns-with-visio-services/ ), and in this article I describe some of the possibilities of using the SharePoint Choice column type.

There are three different options for Choice columns in SharePoint 2013, but only the third, Checkboxes, allows for multiple selections.

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Published on November 14, 2014 by David Parker

Using SharePoint Rich Text Multiple Line Columns with Visio Services

Back in March, I wrote about mapping SharePoint Column Types to Visio Shape Data Types ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2014/03/03/mapping-sharepoint-list-columns-to-visio-shape-data-types/ ), and I skipped over the remaining SharePoint column types that could not be directly mapped. In this article I describe some of the possibilities of using the SharePoint Rich Text option for the multi-line column type.

There are three different options for multiple lines of text columns in SharePoint 2013, so I tried the Enhanced rich text option because it allows for media and tables to be included.

Published on October 10, 2014 by David Parker

Viewing Visio Documents in SharePoint through Outlook

This post comes with the sub-title “Now why didn’t I did know that!”. Sometimes it is easy not to see the wood for the trees, and this is one of those occurrences. I often get asked whether you need a Visio license to view Visio documents in a SharePoint document library. Well, no, but you do need a SharePoint Enterprise Client Access Licence to use Visio Services ( see http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/sharepoint-licensing-overview-collaboration-software-FX103789438.aspx ).
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Published on October 9, 2014 by David Parker

Using JavaScript to Find and Highlight Visio Shapes by Shape Data values in SharePoint Content Editor

In August, I wrote about Using JavaScript to Display Visio Shape Data and Hyperlinks in SharePoint Content Editor ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2014/08/16/using-javascript-to-display-visio-shape-data-and-hyperlinks-in-sharepoint-content-editor/ ), so now I have added the ability to select shapes by a property value. The main advantage of using JavaScript in the client is that there is no need to go back to the server to refresh the page.

In the following screenshot, I have used the standard web part connections between the BeSmart Ltd document library view and the Visio Web Access control in order to set the Drawing URL.