Using Visio and Visio Services - Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 - page 272

Linking to data
Prior to Visio 2007, it was possible to link Visio shapes to external data, but it required a reason-
able amount of technical knowledge and frequently required programming skills, as well. Visio 2007
eliminated those requirements with a new data-linking facility. The Professional edition of Visio 2013
extends the data-linking feature to let you create refreshable connections to data stored in Excel Ser-
vices, SharePoint lists, external SharePoint lists accessible via Microsoft Business Connectivity Services
(BCS), SQL Server databases, and almost any Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) or Object Linking
and Embedding (OLEDB) data source.

In general, there are two steps involved in data linking.

Linking a diagram to one or more external data sources.

1.

2. Linking individual shapes to specific data records.

Later in this chapter, you will walk through the steps involved in linking to external data, but for
now, Figure 9-1 displays the result: an External Data window showing one row for each database
record or row.

FIGURE 9-1 The External Data window, below the Visio drawing window.

After linking each data row to a shape on the drawing page, the External Data window reflects the
data-to-shape link by displaying a link icon at the left end of each row in the External Data window, as
shown in Figure 9-2.

FIGURE 9-2 The link symbols at the left end of each data row.