Microsoft Visio 2013 Business Process Diagramming and Validation

416 Pages·2013·9.144 MB·English

by  David J Parker

Microsoft Visio 2013 Business
Process Diagramming and
Validation
Explore Visio Professional 2013 and improve your
business information through structured diagrams
and custom validation rules
David J. Parker
professional expertise distilled
P U B L I S H I N G
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Microsoft Visio 2013 Business Process Diagramming
and Validation
Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing
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First published: July 2010
Second edition: November 2013
Production Reference: 1181113
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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ISBN 978-1-78217-800-2
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Cover Image by Artie Ng ([email protected])
Credits
Author Project Coordinator
David J. Parker Kranti Berde
Reviewers Proofreader
Nikolay Belykh Stephen Copestake
JMee Hong
Alexander Meijers Indexer
Mehreen Deshmukh
Ed Richards
Production Coordinator
Acquisition Editor
Arvindkumar Gupta
Neha Nagwekar
Cover Work
Lead Technical Editor
Arvindkumar Gupta
Neeshma Ramakrishnan
Technical Editors
Monica John
Edwin Moses
Mrunmayee Patil
About the Author
David J. Parker, being frustrated as an architect in the late 80s trying to match 3D
building models with spreadsheets, explored linking Unix, CAD, and SQL databases
in the early 90s for facilities and cable management.
In 1996 he discovered the ease of linking data to Visio diagrams of personnel and
office layouts. He immediately became one of the first Visio business partners
in Europe, and was soon invited to present his applications at worldwide Visio
conferences. He started his own Visio-based consultancy and development business,
bVisual ltd (http://www.bvisual.net), applying analysis, synthesis, and design to
various graphical information solutions.
He presents Visio solution providers and Visio Services courses for Microsoft EMEA,
adding personal anecdotes and previous mistakes hoping that all can learn by them.
He wrote his first book, Visualizing Information with Microsoft Office Visio 2007, to
spread the word about data-linked diagrams in business, and his second book, which
is about creating custom rules for validating structured diagrams in Visio 2010, has
now been updated and extended for Visio 2013.
He wrote WBS Modeler for Microsoft, which integrates Visio and, Project, and many
other Visio solutions for various vertical markets.
David has been regularly awarded Most Valued Professional status for his Visio
community work over the years, and maintains a Visio blog at http://blog.
bvisual.net.
Based near to Microsoft UK in Reading, he still sees the need for Visio evangelism
throughout the business and development community, and has been touring many
European capitals over the last two years spreading the word of intelligent business
diagramming with Visio and SharePoint.
I would like to thank Microsoft for continuing to develop Visio,
originally in Seattle, then Redmond in USA, and now in Hyderabad,
India. Thank you to Dr. Stephanie Horn at Microsoft for editing the
first version of this book, and my fellow Visio MVP, John Marshall,
for his help and encouragement. For the second, and updated,
version, I would like to thank fellow Visiophiles: Jimi Hong, Ed
Richards, Alexander Meijers, and Nikolay Belykh for their comments.
Most of all, I would like to thank my wife, Beena, for putting up with
me as I wrote another book. Maybe that is why my kids, Kryshnan
and Alyesha, have both left home!
About the Reviewers
Nikolay Belykh is a Visio specialist and an active member of Visio society. He
works currently as software architect in Process4.biz, the Microsoft partner company,
which received the Visio Partner Award of year 2012. The company provides the
award-winning modeling tool for business processes based on Microsoft Visio.
He received his MS degree in informatics from the Novosibirks University, Russia.
After his postgraduation studies, he started to work as software engineer in
industrial automation, where he first got in touch with Visio.
Now he lives and works in Vienna, Austria. You can reach him on Visio forums, or
on his blog site Unmanaged Visio (http://unmanagedvisio.com), where you can
find tips and free tools for Visio developers.
JMee Hong is a Visio MVP. Her specialties include technology and applications
related to data or system visualization with graphic solutions such as Visio, CAD,
and so on. She runs Visio adoption center with Microsoft Korea. She as a Visio
evangelist has been working with many of the commercial and public sector
customers for more than 8 years.
She holds B.S in mechatronics engineering and has also studied robotics system with
virtual reality software. This enables her to understand and consult any business areas'
engineering or technical graphic solution, and high usability interfaces.
I'm very honored in reviewing David J. Parker's book. He is a legend
of Visio and I have always learned from him through his blog.
I'm so proud of being a reviewer of his book. Thanks to all the
Visio MVPs!
Alexander Meijers has been involved with Microsoft products and technologies
for more than 20 years. He got introduced with SharePoint and Office since the
Version 2003 came to the market, and made these products his core knowledge.
With his extended knowledge of programming, he sees a lot of the opportunities
the products have. Due to the fact that the SharePoint platform depends heavenly
on other Microsoft products, his knowledge also extends to other products such as
SQL Server, Windows, Active Directory, and Exchange Server.
He has been involved to a large extent in SharePoint implementations and a number
of Office solutions. These implementations ranged from small, medium, to large
business project handling and in some cases involved more than 100 thousand end
users. His multidiscipline allows him to handle a large set of roles in projects such
as hardcore development, lead consultant, liaison between business and IT, business
advisory, project management, and lead architect. In his spare time he blogs about
SharePoint and Office at http://www.sharepointinspiration.com.
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Overview of Process Management in
Microsoft Visio 2013 7
Exploring the new process management features in Visio 2013 8
Reviewing Visio Process Management capabilities 10
Understanding the Visio BMP Maturity Model 11
Reviewing the foundations of structured diagramming 12
Reviewing the enhanced process flow templates 14
Looking at the Flowchart templates 14
Reviewing the new process flow templates 15
Understanding a BPMN Diagram 15
Understanding a Microsoft SharePoint 2013 workflow 19
Validation of process diagrams 20
Analyzing the structure of a Visio document 21
Using the Visio Process Repository 25
Publishing visual data from Visio 25
Understanding the Visio 2013 editions 27
Planning your own solutions 27
Summary 29
Chapter 2: Understanding the Microsoft Visio Object Model 31
Introducing the Visio Type libraries 31
Going beyond the object model 32
Classifying the Visio document 33
Selecting a programming language to use with Visio 35
Understanding the Drawing Explorer window 36
Understanding the Visio object model 38
Examining the Application object 38
Reviewing the ActiveDocument and ActivePage objects 39