Publishing Data-Connected Visio Diagrams to Visio Services in SharePoint 2010

Visio Services in SharePoint Server 2010 is a service application that allows users to view Microsoft Visio Web Drawings (*.vdw) in a Web browser. This eliminates the need for Visio or Visio Viewer client applications installed on the user’s local computer. These Visio Web Drawings, along with Visio Services, can be connected to various data sources to enable refreshing and updating of data shapes. One of these data sources is a SharePoint list and will be the focus for this post. Let’s look into how we can utilize Visio Services to solve a business requirement.

Business Scenario:

Management has requested a visual depiction of retail stores and current revenue.

Solution:

Publish a Visio Diagram that has a linked data connection to a Retail Stores Revenue SharePoint list.

Requirements:

• Visio Professional 2010 or Visio Premium 2010
• SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Edition
• Properly configured and working Secure Store Service and Visio Graphics Service Applications

   

Step-by-Step Solution:

For starters, we have our SharePoint list that will be the data source for our Visio diagram. This lists details the retails stores and current revenue in the state of Virginia for our fictitious company:

Next, we create a blank Visio diagram and insert the state of Virginia Visio stencil. Geographic Map Shapes for Visio can be found here. We added store shapes to represent our retail store for that region.

Located in the Visio Ribbon UI, we then select the Data tab and Link Data to Shapes icon to start the data connection wizard.

Select “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation list” as the data connection.

Enter the Site URL, select the appropriate list and click Finish.

The Retail Store Revenue list will load below the Visio diagram.

Drag & Drop each row to the desired shape. We should end up with the below:

Now, we want to change our data to remove the store name and be more appealing for our management staff. So, right-click on one of the retail store shapes and select Data > Edit Data Graphic.

Delete the Store data field by clicking Delete. Then, edit the Revenue field by clicking Edit Item. Change the Style to “Bubble Callout” and click Ok. We should end up with the below:

We are ready to publish our diagram to SharePoint as a Visio Web Drawing. On Visio’s File tab on the Ribbon UI, select Save & Send, Save to SharePoint, and Web Drawing as shown:

Save the file to a SharePoint library and leave the default “Automatically view files in browser” selected.

Go to the SharePoint library and click on the Visio Web Drawing file. Select “Enable (always)” to enable refreshing.

On a page where we would like our management to see the drawing, edit the page and select Insert from the ribbon UI > Web Part > Business Data > Visio Web Access. Select “Click here to open the tool pane” and in the Web Drawing URL field, enter the URL to our saved Visio Web Drawing. We can also set the Automatic Refresh Interval, if desired.

Once completed, our diagram is now displayed on our SharePoint site:

To confirm our connection, we can update the Central retail store revenue from $3,750,000 to $4,000,000 in the source Retail Store Revenue SharePoint list. Once the list item has been updated, return back to the web drawing and either click Refresh or wait for the Automatic Refresh Interval to update the drawing.

Complete! I hope you look towards Visio Services in SharePoint 2010 to solve your business solutions as well.