4. Knut Relbe-Moe
Lead Solution Architect
Technical Lead SharePoint
Avega Group AS, Oslo,
Norway
Microsoft Certified Trainer
Founder of NIWUG
Twitter: @sharePTkarm
Email:
knutrelbemoe@outlook.com
Blog: www.sharepointblog.no
Skype: shareptkarm
Mobile: 0047-98224609
My Experience:
SharePoint evangelist, mentor, speaker
Old developer, turned Architect / ITPro
Have worked with SharePoint since the 2003 version.
Worked with several clients upgrading their solution from 2007/2010 to 2013.
Works as a Lead Architect and advisor creating SharePoint Farm architecture/infrastructure on many
projects. With up to 25.000 users.
Worked with automating the installation and configuration of SharePoint.
6. Agenda 1 What is Visio services
2 Configuring Visio Services
3 Why Visio Services
4 SharePoint integration options
5 Demo - How to create a Visio Drawing and show it in the Visio Webpart
6 How it works
7 How is the rendering possible
8 Demo - Visio connecting processes
9 Key Visualization Features
10 Demo - Building A Simple BI Dashboard With Visio 2013 And Visio Services
11 Commenting
12 Demo - Commenting
13 What is JSOM
14 Summary / Next
7. What is Visio Services
Visio Services in SharePoint 2013 enables you to load, display, and
interact programmatically with Visio files on SharePoint Server 2013 and
Microsoft SharePoint Online.
8. Configuring Visio
Services
• Create a Visio Graphics Service service
application in SharePoint Server 2013.
• 2 options:
1. Create using Central administration
1. Need to be member of Farm administrator group
2. New Visio Graphics Service
2. Create using Powershell
1. Need to have minimum ADD-SPShellAdmin
2. Windows PowerShell command prompt (that is,
PS C:>), type the following command and press
Enter:
New-SPVisioServiceApplication -Identity “<VisioGraphicsServiceName>” -
ServiceApplicationPool “SharePoint Web Services Default” -AddToDefaultGroup
9. Why Visio Services
Renders diagrams in the browser
High quality PNG for full fidelity
No depends on Silverlight
Native support for Visio file format
Diagram consumers doesn’t need a Visio Client
Available across devices using desktop browsers
and mobile browsers
Users interact with content
Pan, Zoom, Hyperlinks, View Shape Data
Accessible only via SharePoint
On Premise / Office 365
10. Why Visio Services
Refresh and recalculate data from
Multiple external sources
Configure using the Data linking wizard
in the client
All shapes visually refresh – not just the data Graphics
Data drives Shape Behavior
Integrated into SharePoint solutions
Extensible using the JavaScript API and Web
part connections
11. SharePoint integration options
• Visio Web Access Web Part
• Build a custom page focused on a particular diagram and customize the user
experience
• Web Part Connections
• Set up connections between webparts to enable predetermenied integration scenarios
• JavaScript Mash-Up API
• Write custom dash board using JavaSript, ASP.net etc
12. Demo - How to create a Visio
Drawing and show it in the Visio
Webpart
All demos will later be available on my website: http://www.sharepointblog.no
13. How it works: Visio Service Architecture
Visio Web
Access
Custom Data
Providers
Visio JSOM
Mash-Up API
Web Part
Connections
Visio Proxy
Visio Graphics Service
VDW/b/m
Web Front End
Backend
SQL
OLEDB/ODB
C
XLSX SP Lists
Application Server
14. How it works: Creating a Visio Solution
Save VSDX file to
SharePoint Server 2013
or Office 365
• Create Diagram
• Use Data Linking
2 and Data Graphics
• View diagram in web browser
• Opens diagram in Visio 3
• Click Refresh to update
data graphics
•Data refresh can be
automated by setting
interval time
4
Data Source
• SharePoint List apps
• Excel Services
• SQL Server
• OLEDB / ODBC
1
15. How is rendering possible
New file format
.VSDX
Supported by all Visio 2013 editions
PNGs generated by Visio Services
Supports everything
Shape data
Hyperlinks
Images and clipart
Files are read only on the server (except for commenting)
Updates are cached per user session
16. Demo:
Visio connecting processes
All demos will later be available on my blog: http://www.sharepointblog.no
17. Key Visualization
Features
• Data linking
• Import data to your diagram
• The data is cached in the VSDX file for
portability / offline use
• Link data to shapes
• Link record replicated in Shape Data
Properties
18. Key Visualization
Features
• Data graphics
• Surface Shape Data values
• Represhable shape geometry
• Icon sets
• Text Callouts
• Data bars
• Color by value
• Shape behavior
• All Visio shapes are evaluted for
rendering
• Build Shapes that repond to data
changes
• Drive geometry, formatting, text etc via
the ShapeSheet
21. • SharePoint Lists are an easy yet powerful
data source
• Same farm as the Visio diagram
• User needs read access to the list
• Get your data in a list and VGS can refresh
from it
• Manual Edit
• SharePoint Workflow
• Timer Job
• Web Service
• PowerShell Script
• Applications or Services
Data Source Best Practices
22. • BCS allows you to configure external
content types for connecting to
• External SQL DBs
• SQL On Premises
• SQL Azure
• WCF Services
• Custom .NET providers
• External Lists are fully supported in
Visio 2013
• BCS add-in for 2010
Data Source Best Practices
23. • Support for SQL Server 7.0 –> 2012
• + SQL Azure
• No Analysis Services or Reporting Services
• at least not directly
• Tables & Views
• provided via Visio Data Linking dialog
• Can we refresh from Stored Procedures?
• Yes!
• Not available in the Visio client UI for the SQL
data source option
• Configure BCS to execute the stored procedure
– connect Visio via External List
Data Source Best Practices
24. Data Source Best Practices
• Server Code
• .NET assembly deployed to the GAC and
registered as a Trusted Data Provider for the
Visio Services service application
• Implements AddonDataHandler
• Returns a .NET DataSet object to Visio Services
• Client Code
• Create and maintain the record set
• Set the ConnectionString so Visio Services
knows to call your data provider
• Example: Visio add-in for System Center
2012 Operations Manager
25. Demo - Building A Simple
BI Dashboard With Visio 2013 And
Visio Services
All demos will later be available on my blog: http://www.sharepointblog.no
26. Commenting
Commenting using the Client
View and Edit comments in the Client
Commenting using Visio Services
View and Edit comments in the browser
Allows teams to get feedback without installing the client
Comments stored as part of the Visio file (.vsdx)
Backward compability
Old comments converted to new for the new file format
New comments converted to old for old clients
27. Demo - Commenting
All demos will later be available on my blog: http://www.sharepointblog.no
28. What is JSOM
• What is JSOM?
• A JavaScript based object model for communicating with the
Visio Web Access web part
Web Part Page
Visio Web
Access Web
Part
Content Editor
Web Part
Document Library
File containing JScript
Visio Diagram
29. What is JSOM
• What can you do with it?
• Read shape data, hyperlinks, comments
• Select shapes
• Add highlights and overlays (HTML + HTML5)
• Respond to mouse events
• Change the pan and zoom settings
• Navigate pages and diagrams ( drill down )
30. Demo - Visio & Web Part
Connections to Highlight
All demos will later be available on my blog: http://www.sharepointblog.no
31. Summary
• Easy to set up
• Easy to create diagrams with Visio
• Need Enterprise License
• Visio provides lots of tools to create diagrams
• Callouts
• Stock graphics
• Use other images
• Excel Services
• Requires additional considerations
• Users
• Interaction
• No need for client
32. Thank you!
Chris Hopkins
Thomas Browet
Alan Richards
Don Kirkham
Bjørn-Harald Rapp
33. Want more information/Deep dive?
• Chris Hopkins blog:
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chhopkin/
• Can find much information on Internet, Microsoft have many Visio Webinars
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLJPonmyw5o
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgf9UtuB1D8
• Technet:
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee663482(v=office.15).aspx
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee663485(v=office.15).aspx
•
Explain that Visio services is run across the different SP servers
Open Visio 2010
Click New > Basic Flowchart > Create
Click Save As > Change the file type to “Web Drawing” and save
Create both your main process diagram and sub-process diagrams. Save the main process and sub-processes as two different Visio files.
On the sub-process diagrams: change the page names for each sub-process
On the main diagram: Select the whole process and right-click on the process > Data > Define Shape Data. Click New. Set the label to “subprocess” and type to string. Right click on the first shape > Data > Data Shape. Set the “subprocess” variable to the page name of the sub-process that is associated with the first shape. Repeat this step for all shapes in the main diagram
Open your sharepoint site that you want to display these Visio diagrams
Upload both Visio files to a document library
On a page, add two Visio web access web parts – one is for the main process and one is for the sub-process
Edit the main process Visio web part and set the web drawing URL to the main process Visio file url
In the “Expose the following shape data” field, type the name of the label we created previously, which is “subprocess”
Save the changes made to the main Visio web part
Edit the sub-process Visio web part and set the web drawing URL to the sub-process Visio file url
Save the changes made to the sub-process Visio web part
On the sub-process Visio web part, click edit > Connections > Get Web Drawing URL and Page Name From > (the main process Visio web part) – Provider Field Name: subprocess, Consumer Field Name: Page Name. Click Finish
Exit edit mode of the page (or Publish if the publishing feature is activated)
In SharePoint 2010, you can use web part connections between a Sharepoint list and a Visio Web Access web part to highlight steps in a process diagram that are associated with a list item:
When you select a different list item, different steps in the process diagram are highlighted:
Here are the steps to build this example:
Open Visio 2012, create a Visio diagram, and save it as a “Web Drawing” file type
Upload the Visio file to a SharePoint document library
In your Sharepoint site, create a web part page and add the Visio Web Access web part to the page. Edit this web part and set the web drawing URL to the Visio file URL
Create a custom list and add a column called “Highlighted Steps.” Choose “Single line of text” as the column type
Create a list item in the custom list. In the “Highlighted Steps” column, add the Shape name(s) that you want to highlight when you select this list item. If it’s multiple shape names, separated them with commas with no space in between. Ex) “Process1,Proccess1″. You can find the shape name by clicking on the shape information pane and then clicking the shape. The shape name shows up in the upper left side of the box. In the example shown in the picture, the shape name is Process.3.
On the page, add the list view web part for the custom list you created above.
In the edit mode for the page, click the edit dropdown > Connections > Get Shapes to Highlight From > (custom list name)
In the web part connection settings, set the Provider field name to the “Highlighted Steps” column and the Consumer field name to “Shape Names”. Click Finish
Now when you select one of the list items, it will highlight all the shapes associated with the list item.
Reference: