Using Visio and Visio Services - Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 - page 271

Enhanced template and shape search It's easier in Visio 2013 to locate the right template
to begin a new diagram or to find exactly the right shape to enhance your diagram. Search
results are sorted and filtered more effectively and duplicate results are eliminated.

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Enhanced touch support Visio 2013 recognizes a greater array of gestures and touch for
easier use on touch-enabled devices.

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■ New file format All previous versions of Visio stored drawings in a proprietary file format.
Visio 2013 joins other members of the Microsoft Office family in using the Open Packag-
ing Convention, an XML-based format. The new .vsdx file format makes the contents of Visio
drawings more accessible to other applications for a variety of purposes, including integration
with SharePoint.

Six reasons to include Visio 2013 in your BI suite

Visio 2007 introduced several key BI features, including the ability to link shapes to one or more
external data sources with just a few mouse clicks. Visio 2007 also introduced data graphics, a set of
features designed to make data visible via text callouts, icons, and shape color. In addition, the 2007
release continued to provide the long-standing feature to build a website from a Visio diagram.

Visio 2010 introduced the ability to validate diagrams against one or more sets of business rules
and continued the BI trend by integrating with SharePoint in a way that made it possible for users
without Visio to view diagrams in their web browsers. Even better, the browser view was dynamic—
the drawing updated automatically when the Visio document or its underlying data changed.

The features from previous Visio versions, combined with the new features described in the
preceding section, provide six compelling reasons to include Visio 2013 in your SharePoint business
intelligence scenario.

Dynamic data connections 1.

Data visualization 2.

Real-time collaboration 3.

Diagram validation 4.

Instant websites 5.

Dynamic diagram rendering via SharePoint 6.

You will learn more about each of these reasons in the following six sections.