Recently a bug was discovered in the SCOM add-in ( download here ) which prevents the add-in from applying the cool custom data graphic icon set on any shapes that are linked to SCOM data. Luckily there are a few workarounds: For existing diagrams...

SharePoint Designer has the capability to generate Visio diagrams for the workflow history page that display status of the executing workflow, unfortunately Visual Studio does not do this for workflows that are created and deployed to your farm. Ah, not...

When you choose to publish a SharePoint Workflow from SharePoint Designer you have the option to generate a visualization of the workflow.  This setting is found on the Workflow Settings page in SharePoint Designer when editing a workflow. If you...

In a previous post I showed you how to edit the web.config file to disable the data refresh prompt so that diagrams will always refresh when rendered, http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chhopkin/archive/2010/09/28/force-data-refresh-for-published-diagrams.aspx ...

Using an app.config file is a great way to load settings for your add-in at runtime and the VSTO 4.0 runtime supports this, but what you might not know is that a small change in VSTO 4.0 SP1 might keep your app.config file from loading. Here is a blog...

As you know Loops and State Machines are not supported scenarios for the SharePoint Workflow template in Visio 2010 Premium, in fact they are not supported using the out of box features in SharePoint Designer 2010.  A lot of times you might run into...

In a series of articles I explored the different scenarios around SQL and data refresh. One of the scenarios that I have not covered is how to create a data refreshable diagram from Analysis Services. If you do not already know this, Visio and Visio Services...

One of the new site templates in SharePoint 2010 is the Visio Process Repository site template. This site template contains a document library template that is customized specifically for Visio process diagrams. A document library that is created from...

The data linking wizard in Visio 2010 Professional and Premium allows you to connect a SQL table or view to your Visio diagram but the wizard does not give you the option to specify a stored procedure or a custom query. In this article I will show...

This past week I found myself coping and pasting a lot of JavaScript to new files just so I could create a new mash up demo for Visio Services, which annoyed me. Why can’t I just create a new Visio Services mash up project from Visual Studio to...

I am posting about the release of this training kit because the kit contains a lab that walks you through developing a web part page that hosts a Visio diagram and the JavaScript code needed to add additionally functionality to the diagram using Image...

The new containers feature in Visio 2010 is fantastic. If you have not heard of this feature then check out the product team blog article about containers, here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visio/archive/2009/08/25/organizing-diagrams-with-containers.aspx...

Visio Services does not have a REST style API to allow you to get to shapes or data within the published Visio diagram, however you can access PNG versions of each page in a published diagram using a URL. For example, say you wanted to get the image...

The Data Linking and Data Graphic features in Visio 2010 give you the ability to create very interesting and artistic dashboards, but the trick is to get the data that you need into a data source that Visio and Visio Services can refresh from. For this...

Refreshing diagrams from SQL Azure using SQL Authentication If you did not read Part 1 of this series, do so now as it will help ensure that you have Visio Services, Excel Services and Secure Store Service configured properly. There are a few scenarios...

Refreshing diagrams from SQL Server using SQL Authentication If you did not read Part 1 of this series, do so now as it will help ensure that you have Visio Services, Excel Services and Secure Store Service configured properly. There are a few scenarios...

I get asked this question quite often so I thought that I would post my view.  There are various documents that discuss client requirements and version compatibility for various Office applications, including co-existence as referenced here… 1) System...

Refreshing diagrams from SQL Server using Windows Authentication If you did not read Part 1 of this series, do so now as it will help ensure that you have Visio Services, Excel Services and Secure Store Service configured properly. There are a few scenarios...

It is no secret that Visio allows you to connect the shapes in your diagrams to a variety of data source, most of which are also compatible with Visio Services once your diagram is hosted in a SharePoint 2010 document library. What seems to be a secret...

I recently finished an engagement with a customer who developed their own custom shapes and template to help enforce a corporate standard for all process diagrams authored by business owners within the organization. Once the template and stencils were...

Visio allows you to link to data from external data sources so that you can visualize the data on the shapes within your diagrams, and one of the external data sources that Visio supports out of the box is SQL Server. The Data Linking wizard in Visio...

I found an issue ( problems connecting to External Lists on sub sites ) while testing my BDC Connector for Visio and have since released a new version of the add-in and the data module that resolves the issue. Please refer to the original article for...

When I speak to SharePoint developers about the dashboard and API capabilities of Visio Services the first question I get asked is, “Can I link shapes in Visio 2010 to an External List and have Visio Services refresh the data in the published diagrams...

The Data Linking wizard in Visio 2010 Professional and Visio 2010 Premium allows you to link data directly to the shapes in your diagram from a number of different data sources. For a review and tutorial on this functionality take a look at this article...

Published Visio diagrams can include hyperlinks which allow users to navigate to: other pages in the same diagram, other pages in other published diagrams, even other sites using standard URLs, when the diagram is published to Visio Services as a Visio...