BOOKS FOR PROFESSIONALS BY PROFESSIONALS® Malik Sistla Visio Services Quick Guide In this fast-paced 100-page guide, revised and updated from Pro SharePoint 2013 Business Intelligence Solutions, you’ll learn to load, display and interact with dynamic, data-powered Visio diagrams in SharePoint 2013 or Offi ce 365. Visio Services Quick Guide gives you the tools to build anything from a simple project workfl ow to an organizational infrastructure diagram, powered by real data from SharePoint or SQL Server. Colleagues can load your diagrams entirely in the browser, meaning that a single Visio client installation is enough to get started. Readers with JavaScript experience will also fi nd out how to get additional control over Visio diagrams using the JavaScript mashup API, and how to build a custom data provider. The fi nal chapter covers some useful information on administering Visio Services. Get started bringing your Visio diagrams to life with the Visio Services Quick Guide. Shelve in ISBN 978-1-4842-0869-4 51999 Applications/MS Office User level: Intermediate SOURCE CODE ONLINE 9781484208694 www.apress.com www.it-ebooks.info For your convenience Apress has placed some of the front matter material after the index. Please use the Bookmarks and Contents at a Glance links to access them. www.it-ebooks.info Contents at a Glance About the Authors �����������������������������������������������������������������������������xi Acknowledgments ��������������������������������������������������������������������������xiii ■ Chapter 1: Introduction and Background ���������������������������������������1 ■ Chapter 2: Presenting Visio Services ���������������������������������������������5 ■ Chapter 3: Visio Data Tab �������������������������������������������������������������19 ■ Chapter 4: Integrating Visio with SharePoint �������������������������������31 ■ Chapter 5: Administration of Visio Services �������������������������������101 ■ Appendix: What’s New in Visio Services 2013 ���������������������������105 Index ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������125 v www.it-ebooks.info Chapter 1 Introduction and Background You’ve probably heard that a picture is worth 1,000 words, and also that actions speak louder than words. If you put those two axioms together, you get the idea of Visio. It is often far easier to understand and simpler to explain a concept, a theory, or even a story by presenting actions visually in blocks and diagrams rather than words. Visio is a very powerful vector graphic tool you can use for exactly that, and Visio Services lets you bring your Visio diagrams to life. In this chapter, we’ll have a brief background on Visio, and what Visio Services can do. First, let’s take a quick look at what we’ll cover in the rest of this book. What Will You Learn? This book introduces you to Visio Services and discusses using Visio with SharePoint 2013. If you’re familiar with Visio 2010, a few concepts might be redundant. You might want to either skip them or flick through them quickly, or, for a quick overview of what’s new in Visio Services 2013, see the Appendix. By the end of this book, you’ll learn about: • The essentials of Visio Services • Setting up Visio Services on SharePoint 2013 • Publishing a basic Visio diagram to SharePoint • Connecting a Visio diagram to: • A SharePoint List • SQL Server with and without Secure Store Services • Data using a custom data provider (using Visual Studio and WCF) • Workflows and Visio with SharePoint Designer 2013 • Management of Visio Services using Central Administration (CA) • Management of Visio Services using Windows PowerShell • What’s new in Visio Services in SharePoint 2013 (see Appendix) 1 www.it-ebooks.info Chapter 1 ■ IntroduCtIon and BaCkground Prerequisites To be able to use this book successfully, you’ll need the following software: • SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise Edition • SQL Server 2008 R2 / SQL Server 2008 / SQL Server 2012 (x86 or x64) • Visio Client—2013 Professional or 2010 Professional or 2010 Ultimate • SharePoint Designer 2013, available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details. aspx?id=35491 • Visual Studio 2012 or 2013 Professional Edition, trial version available for download at http://www.visualstudio.com/ downloads/download-visual-studio-vs • If you’d prefer using the Express editions of Visual Studio and SQL Server, you can download them from www.microsoft.com/express/ Why Visio? Let me walk you through a small story called “My day begins with . . . . I wake up early in the morning, get ready, and start from home at about 7:15AM. On my way driving to the office, I stop by the nearest coffee shop to pick up my morning beverage. I choose hot chocolate and head for the office—yet another decision to make, whether or not take the freeway. I quickly look over my shoulder and as there’s not a lot of traffic, I choose to drive on local streets. At 8:45AM, I arrive at the office. Notice the words in my little story. It’s all about initiation, actions, decisions, and concluding. Well, of course these four elements and maybe a few others are required to run our lives and, in fact, any job, too. Simply put, if I want to tell my story in the form of diagram or a flow chart, it becomes a sort of storyboard—a logical sequence of boxes connected together, as shown in Figure 1-1. Figure 1-1. “My day begins with . . .” storyboard 2 www.it-ebooks.info Chapter 1 ■ IntroduCtIon and BaCkground With Visio you can create a wide range of diagrams easily with the help of inbuilt shapes, stencils, and templates. The diagram scope can encompass the simple, like my storyboard, or the complex, like the network representation of an entire organizational infrastructure. It can target various audiences, from business analyst to a developer to a solutions architect. A construction engineer or an interior designer can create a floor plan. An electrical engineer can create a basic electrical circuit or a logic diagram. There are endless possibilities using Visio; you just need to focus your imagination on the available templates to create your own diagrams. Why Visio Services? Now, what if your Visio diagrams could come to life? What if you could power these diagrams with data and share them with your colleagues? Let me give you a real-time example. As an architect in the organization where I work, I’m often asked to give introductory sessions to many people on the project team, and I typically use a Visio diagram to explain the project details. Whenever there are enhancements, updates, or changes to the project, I have to redo my Visio diagram and present it to the team. Instead of calling for another meeting, I could update and e-mail a new version of the Visio diagram and get final approval. But not everyone has Visio installed. Moreover, where does this information end up? E-mails! Or maybe in yet another set of printed documents that will just collect dust on the shelf. What’s missing here? 1. Collaboration 2. Easy viewing. For a Visio diagram you need either the Visio client and related licenses, or at least a Visio viewer (there’s a free viewer available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ download/details.aspx?id=35811) 3. Instant update of the diagrams 4. Data connectivity You’ve all probably thought at some point, wouldn’t it be great to be able to share a Visio diagram that’s connected to data, in which the diagram updates automatically when the data changes? And wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to have end users view the diagram in their browsers, without having to install the actual Visio client? Well, those scenarios are possible. With Visio Services in SharePoint 2013, you can publish Visio diagrams to SharePoint, drive them with real-time data, and share them easily without installing Visio client—all of this by using Visio Services in SharePoint 2013. Visio Services was introduced in the previous version of SharePoint (2010) as a SharePoint Server service application. These services are available as part of the Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) and they provide a platform where users can share the Visio diagrams using the SharePoint infrastructure. Visio Services provide various data connectivity models to drive Visio diagrams with data, both real-time and historic. Most of the features discussed in this book apply to both on-premises and in the cloud—Office 365 SharePoint Online. Unless otherwise mentioned, the examples discussed will work on both platforms. 3 www.it-ebooks.info Chapter 1 ■ IntroduCtIon and BaCkground Summary In this introduction chapter, you have seen what you will be learning in this book and why you need Visio, as well as the benefits of Visio Services. What’s Next? In the next chapter, you will learn about configuring Visio Services, and understanding its architecture and features. 4 www.it-ebooks.info Chapter 2 Presenting Visio Services This chapter will get you set up with Visio Services on SharePoint 2013. We’ll also look at the features available and take a look at the underlying architecture. Setting up Visio Services Setting up Visio Services is quite simple, requiring just few basic steps. Before beginning, however, ensure that you have Farm Administrator privileges. There are two approaches. In the first, in SharePoint 2013, simply go to Central Administration ➤ Configuration Wizards and launch the Farm Configuration wizard, as shown in Figure 2-1. Figure 2-1. Launching the Farm Configuration wizard 5 www.it-ebooks.info Chapter 2 ■ presenting Visio serViCes ■ Tip if you are installing sharepoint for the first time, you’ll be prompted to run this step toward the end of the installation. if you prefer, you can just skip it for now and run it later. In the subsequent screen, you are prompted to ‘Start the Wizard’, as shown in Figure 2-2. Figure 2-2. Choosing to configure the farm using the wizard To set up the services, you need to have a service account and choose required services from the wizard (Figure 2-3). Be sure you have Visio Graphics Service checked. If this is a fresh installation, this option will be enabled. Figure 2-3. Select the desired services using the Farm Configuration wizard 6 www.it-ebooks.info Chapter 2 ■ presenting Visio serViCes Click Next. SharePoint will provision all services selected in this step, and prompts to create a new site collection with the selected services. You cannot choose a service that’s already installed because it will be disabled, as shown in Figure 2-3. ■ Note With this default mode and the service application already available to the default web application, you can now create a site collection using one of the available templates. This approach is very direct. Things get a little more interesting when you haven’t set up the services during installation or if you later upgrade your licensing model. In such situations, you can set up Visio Services using the following approach. Go to Application Management ➤ Service Applications ➤ Manage Service Applications. Click the New button on the ribbon and then choose Visio Graphics Service. Provide a valid application name, and choose or create a new application pool under which this service application will run. As you create the application pool, you’ll have the option to use any already configured service accounts or to register a new managed account, as shown in Figure 2-4. Figure 2-4. Setting up a new Visio Graphics Service application 7 www.it-ebooks.info