Book Image

Microsoft Visio 2013 Business Process Diagramming and Validation - Second Edition

By : David Parker
Book Image

Microsoft Visio 2013 Business Process Diagramming and Validation - Second Edition

By: David Parker

Overview of this book

Microsoft Visio is a diagramming program which ultimately allows business professionals to explore and communicate complex information more effectively. Through easy-to-understand visual representations, Visio enables you to present complicated data in a clear and communicative way. Therefore, productivity is increased by utilizing the wide variety of diagrams that can convey information at a glance as data can be understood and acted upon quickly. This book enables business developers to unleash the full potential of Visio 2013 Professional Edition. Microsoft Visio 2013 Business Process Diagramming and Validation is a focused tutorial with a range of practical examples and downloadable code that shows you how to create business process diagramming templates with Visio, enabling you to effectively visualize business information. It draws on real business examples and needs and covers all the new features of Visio 2013 Professional Edition. This focused tutorial will enable you to get to grips with diagram validation in Visio 2013 Professional Edition to the fullest extent, enabling you to perform powerful automatic diagram verification based on custom logic and assuring correct and compliant diagrams. You will learn how to create and publish rules and how to use the ShapeSheet to write formulae. There is also a special focus on extending and enhancing the capabilities of Visio 2013 diagram validation and on features that are not found in the out-of-the-box product, like installing and using the new Rules Tools add-on complete with source code, reviewing the new diagramming rules in flowcharts and BPMN templates, and creating your own enhanced Data Flow Model Diagram template complete with validation rules. Microsoft Visio 2013 Business Process Diagramming and Validation begins by covering the basic functions of Visio 2013 before moving on to discuss how to formulate your own validation rules and how to use the Visio Object Model. ShapeSheet functions are explored in detail as well as how to create validation rule sets and visualizing issues, with practical demonstrations along the way. It also covers integration with SharePoint 2013 and Office365 and how to build a Rules Tools add-on using C#, how to create test and filter expressions, and how to publish validation rules for others to use. Finally, the book concludes with the creation and implementation of a new RuleSet for Data Flow Model Diagrams with a worked example. By following the practical and immediately deployable examples found in this book, you will successfully learn how to use the features of Microsoft Visio 2013 and how to extend the functionality provided in the box.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
10
10. A Worked Example for Data Flow Model Diagrams – Part 2
13
Index

Microsoft Visio has had, for several versions, a useful Save As Web feature that creates a mini-website, complete with widgets for pan and zoom, Shape Data, and shape reports. This has worked best using the Vector Markup Language (VML) in Microsoft Internet Explorer; or in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) using a web browser that supports it natively; or in older browsers that have the required plug-in. This is quite powerful, but it does require that the native Visio file is republished if any changes are made to the document. The new Open Packaging Convention XML in Visio 2013 is utilized by Visio Services in SharePoint 2013 to render the diagram in html directly, and has a JavaScript Object Model (JSOM) for developers. In addition, Microsoft has an ActiveX Visio Viewer control that can display native Visio files that are in the new OPC format or the older binary and XML formats.

This control is installed as default with Microsoft Outlook 2007 and later, but is also available as a separate free download from Microsoft. In fact, the Visio Viewer control has a programmable API that enables Shape Data and hyperlinks to be extracted and exposed too. While this viewer has the advantage that the native file does not need to be hosted on SharePoint with Visio Services, its reach is limited by the choice of browsers available and the willingness to make the native Visio file accessible—this is not always the best strategy.

Microsoft Visio 2013 provides Visio Services for Microsoft SharePoint. Therefore, with rendering on the server, any client that accesses the Microsoft SharePoint site will have the ability to view Visio diagrams without having to install anything locally.

The user can interact with the diagrams by clicking on shapes to view the Shape Data, navigating any embedded hyperlinks as well as pan/zoom and print capabilities. These are capabilities of the Save As Web and Visio Viewer options too. In addition, Visio 2013 introduced commenting on shapes and the ability to co-author. These features are extremely useful for collaboration.

Microsoft Visio 2007 introduced the ability to add a data recordset to a diagram and refresh that data so that the diagram could be kept up-to-date, but the Save As Web html pages and the Visio Viewer ActiveX controls are not able to automatically respond to any data changes. Therefore, the diagram can quickly become outdated, thus requiring you to refresh the diagram in Visio, and then to republish it.

Now with Visio Services, that same data recordset can be refreshed by the server, thus providing everyone who views the diagram using the new Visio web part with the latest information. This is extremely nice, but be aware that there are some limitationsfor example, no shapes will be added or deleted in this operation, but data-linked cells will have their formulas updated, which is a big advance from Visio 2010 when only linked Shape Data and Data Graphics were updated. No layer visibility changes will be respected. Still, you no longer have to republish just to refresh the data set!