SharePoint 2010: Visio Services

Microsoft introduced Visio Services in SharePoint Server 2007. With SharePoint 2010, Microsoft has taken the Visio Services to the next level by allowing rendering of Visio diagrams and charts within the browser. Users can now use the out of the box Visio web parts to render the Visio diagrams and bring in the seamless integration of business intelligence between Visio, SharePoint and back end data.

Let me show you an example:

Lets create a simple Visio diagram which fetches values from external data:

This diagram is using the SupplyChain SQL database and the Suppliers table:

I can now save this as a Visio Web Diagram (.vdw) and upload to a document library in my Business Intelligence site.

Now, I can go to my dashboard and insert the Visio web diagram using the Visio Web Access web part.

This will add the Visio Web Access web part to the dashboard page where you can specify the Visio file to render:

Below is the rendered Visio web diagram in the web part:

You can see that the external data is also fetched in the diagram!

Notice there is also an option to enable refresh!

You can pan and also zoom into the diagram using the zooming controls (its very interactive!):

You can configure some of the default behaviour of the web part from its web part options pane:

The Real Deal

Lets go to SQL and change the Assembly Time value for the Bevel Assembly from 45 to 55

Lets go back to our dashboard page and refresh the Visio web diagram:

We now have the updated value!

Configuring Visio Services

The Visio Services is managed by the Visio Graphics Service service application (Central Administration | Application Management | Manage Service Applications)

Visio 2010: Designing SharePoint (2010) Workflows

Today people use SharePoint Designer, Visual Studio (I haven’t played around creating workflows with VS though) or third party tools like K2, Nintex for building/designing workflows. Adding to this ‘elite list’ of workflow designers is Visio 2010!

Yep, now business users can make use of Visio 2010 to create workflows which can be exported. Though there is no information on whether these exported workflows can be imported using SharePoint Designer 2010  or directly from SharePoint 2010, I think SharePoint Designer 2010 should support importing these Visio SharePoint Workflows.

If you are in the Office 2010 technical preview, you can download Visio 2010.

Below are some screenshots of the new Visio 2010 SharePoint Workflow Template:

Here is my simple workflow I designed:

You can also validate your workflow before exporting or saving

After its successfully validated, you can then export

Exporting the workflow creates a .vwi file:

The .vwi is nothing but a but a zip file which consists of:

What happens next is yet to be figured and I hope information will start flowing as soon as Microsoft unveils SharePoint 2010 in the SharePoint Conference!

Until then, lets enjoy designing workflows in Visio 2010!