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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Microsoft Visio is a diagramming program using vector graphics, which ultimately allows business professionals to explore and communicate complex information more effectively. Through various visual representations, Visio enables complicated data to be presented in a clear, communicative, and data-connected way. Therefore, productivity is increased by utilizing the wide variety of diagrams that can convey information at a glance, as data can be understood and acted upon quickly. This book enables business developers to unleash the full potential of Diagram Validation that Visio 2010 Premium Edition has to offer.This focused tutorial will enable you to get to grips with Diagram Validation in Visio 2010 Premium Edition to the fullest extent, enabling powerful automatic diagram verification based on custom logic and assuring correct and compliant diagrams. You will learn how to create and publish Rules, and use the ShapeSheet to write formulae. There is a special focus on extending and enhancing the capabilities of Visio 2010 diagram validation, and on features that are not found in the out-of-the-box product, like installing and using a new Rules Tools add-in, complete with source code, reviewing the new diagramming rules in flowchart and BPMN templates, and creating your own enhanced Data Flow Model Diagram template, complete with Validation Rules.The book begins by covering the basic functions of Visio 2010, and then dives deep into showing you how to formulate your own Validation Rules and understand the Visio Object Model. ShapeSheet functions are explored in detail, as are creating Validation Rule Sets and Rules, and visualizing issues, with practical demonstrations along the way. Other content includes building a Rules Tools add-in using C#, creating test and filter expressions, and publishing Validation Rules for others to use. Finally, the book considers the creation and implementation of a new RuleSet for Data Flow Model Diagrams with a worked example.By following the practical and immediately deployable examples found in the book, you will successfully learn both how to use the features of Microsoft Visio 2010, and how to extend the functionality provided in the box.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010
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Table of Contents
Microsoft Visio 2010 Business Process Diagramming and Validation
Microsoft Visio 2010 Business Process Diagramming and Validation
Copyright © 2010 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: July 2010
Production Reference: 1020710
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. 32 Lincoln Road Olton Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-849680-14-1
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Sandeep Babu (<[email protected]>)
Credits
Author
David J. Parker
Reviewers
Dr. Stephanie L. Horn
John Marshall
Acquisition Editor
Kerry George
Development Editor
Stephanie Moss
Technical Editor
Vinodhan Nair
Indexer
Rekha Nair
Editorial Team Leader
Gagandeep Singh
Project Team Leader
Lata Basantani
Project Coordinator
Poorvi Nair
Graphics
Nilesh Mohite
Production Coordinators
Kruthika Bangera
Adline Swetha Jesuthas
Cover Work
Kruthika Bangera
Foreword
I met the author through the Visio MVP community — a group of elite Visio experts who actively share their technical expertise with others. David Parker is a long-time Visio MVP, and we first discussed the new Diagram Validation functionality shipped with Microsoft Visio Premium 2010 almost two years before its release. As a Visio MVP, David provides input for new functionality and early feedback on features as they are developed. Diagram Validation was one of the features I worked on for Visio 2010, and David was keen to learn about its functionality.
The Visio team had heard from our customers that they spend a lot of time manually checking diagrams to find even simple problems like shapes without labels and unconnected shapes. Companies were also struggling to ensure that diagrams met certain compliancy requirements or business standards. With Diagram Validation, Visio automatically verifies properties of a diagram and displays diagramming issues. It is then easy to review the issues and fix the problems in the diagram. This automatic detection of diagramming errors is a big time saver and can greatly increase diagram quality.
Microsoft Visio Premium 2010 provides built-in validation support for Basic Flowchart, Cross-Functional Flowchart, Six Sigma, Microsoft SharePoint Workflow, and Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) diagrams. What intrigued David most, though, was the ability for anyone to create custom validation logic — you can specify your own custom diagram requirements, for any type of diagram, and Visio will verify these requirements for you. Moreover, once you have created custom validation logic, you can use it in all your diagrams, share it with others, distribute it within your company, or even sell it as part of a Visio solution. As most diagrams have some logical structure to them, there are many opportunities to create your own custom validation logic and extend the built-in functionality of Diagram Validation.
Although Visio 2010 has just recently been released, David is already an expert in the area of Diagram Validation. He has created new validation logic for several different diagram types, created a tool to work with validation logic in Visio, and written articles about Diagram Validation. Outside of the Visio team itself, David is probably most versed in this area of Visio 2010. It was not surprising then that David chose this area for his new book. This is David Parker’s second book — he is also the author of Visualizing Information with Microsoft Office Visio 2007.
As a technical reviewer for this book, I had a chance to read the book from cover to cover. As I read, there were a couple of key things that impressed me about its contents. First, this is more than a book about Diagram Validation; it also introduces Visio users to an assortment of new Visio 2010 features. Second, it presents a nice balance between the Visio Object Model and the Visio ShapeSheet. These two powerful tools combine to provide a unique development experience within Visio. Finally, the book provides coded examples, and even a chapter devoted to a worked example. These clear, well thought out examples are great for those who want to experiment in Visio as they read the book.
David begins this book with an overview of process management in Visio 2010. Diagram Validation is one of many features developed for business process users. In fact, business process management is a cornerstone of Microsoft Visio Premium 2010. The Visio team spent a lot of time reflecting on how we could best enhance the experience for our business process users—we added new diagram types like BPMN and SharePoint workflow, redesigned our Cross-Functionality Flowchart (CFF) support to make it easier to use, and created new support for concepts like sub-processes and Diagram Validation. Readers of this book will be introduced to a breadth of new Visio 2010 functionality, thanks to David’s considerable knowledge of Visio 2010.
David next devotes a chapter each to the Visio Object Model and the Visio ShapeSheet. Microsoft Visio is unique as a diagramming application, because of the joint power of the Visio Object Model and Visio shapes. Beginners to Visio are often surprised by the amount of data and behavioral logic that can be specified on a shape, through the ShapeSheet. For example, the way a shape interacts with other shapes and the drawing page and the way users can interact with the shape are often implemented by formulas entered in the ShapeSheet. David is well aware of the balance between creating smart shapes and writing solution code.
A similar balance exists between the Visio ShapeSheet and validation logic—the validation logic can often be made simpler if the data or logic specified on shapes is slightly more complex. Unless you write code to specify your diagram requirements, this realization is fundamental to writing validation logic for your requirements. Appropriately, the worked example for data flow model diagrams at the end of the book shows how the shape properties specified in the ShapeSheet can be leveraged when writing validation logic.
Having written a significant amount of the validation logic shipped with Visio 2010, I am familiar with the learning curve associated with writing validation logic. It was daunting, at first to ponder expressing the validation logic to check the visual correctness of a diagram based on the diagramming rules specified in the BPMN standard. Perhaps surprisingly, this task turned out to be rather straightforward—Microsoft Visio Premium 2010 shipped this BPMN validation logic and it is also written out in this book’s appendix.
To write even very complex validation logic, it is simply a matter of clearly understanding the fundamentals of Diagram Validation. This book presents these fundamentals and, through examples, shows you how to create custom validation logic. David enjoyed the challenge of writing complex diagram requirements as validation logic, and the satisfaction of having these requirements forevermore verified automatically and I hope you have a similar experience with Diagram Validation. It is very rewarding to have the ability to express diagram requirements to meet your needs, and to know these requirements will be automatically verified by Microsoft Visio Premium 2010.
Dr. Stephanie L. Horn
VISIO MVP Coordinator and Program Manager on the Visio development team
About the Author
David J. Parker explored linking Unix CAD and SQL databases in the early ‘90s for facilities and cable management, as he was frustrated as an architect in the late ‘80s, trying to match 3D building models with spreadsheets.
In ‘96 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 has presented Visio solution provider courses for Microsoft EMEA, adding personal anecdotes and previous mistakes hoping that all can learn from them.
He wrote his first book, Visualizing Information with Microsoft Office Visio 2007 (http://www.visualizinginformation.com), to spread the word about data-linked diagrams in business, and is currently writing his second book, which is about creating custom rules for validating structured diagrams in Visio 2010.
David 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://bvisual.spaces.live.com.
Based near to Microsoft UK in Reading, he still sees the need for Visio evangelism throughout the business and development community.
I would like to thank the Microsoft Visio for continuing to develop such a great application, and in particular, Stephanie Horn for agreeing to edit this book. Similarly, I would like to thank my fellow Visio MVP, John Marshall, for his help and encouragement. Most of all, I would like to thank my wife, Beena, for allowing me to write another book!
About the Reviewers
Dr. Stephanie L. Horn is a Program Manager on the Visio team at Microsoft and coordinated the Diagram Validation feature introduced in Microsoft Visio 2010. She is also responsible for the programmability aspects of Visio and is the coordinator for the Visio MVPs—a small group of recognized Visio community leaders that includes the author, David Parker. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Toronto.
John Marshall apprenticed as a Civil Engineer and early on learned the power of computers. Many of the tedious tasks that were routine in Civil Engineering could be automated and done in less time with better accuracy.
After university, he switched to OS development on mainframes and continued to work in various aspects of the computer industry on wide variety of platforms. One area of interest has always been graphics and he wrote several applications to create business graphics in the pre-PC days.
In 1993, shortly before Visio was released, he was introduced to the product by a sample copy of Visio that was included on a Microsoft Windows 3 upgrade disk. It provided a far easier solution to business diagrams and the user was not restricted to the shapes that came with the application. When he checked out Visio on the Visio forum on CompuServe, he ended up answering more questions than he asked. This started an almost twenty year involvement as an online volunteer helping the Visio community. When Visio was acquired by Microsoft he received the first Visio MVP award and has received one annually ever since.
With Visio, he has a strong interest in automation and shape creation. He maintains a website, Visio.MVPs.Org that lists the collection of Visio stencils he has found online.
He has worked on the following books:
Preface
Once the creators of Aldus PageMaker had delivered Desktop publishing to the masses, they decided that they could make a smarter diagramming application. Eighteen months later, they emerged with the Visio product. Now they needed to get a foothold in the market, so they targeted the leading process flow diagramming package of the day, ABC FlowCharter, as the one to outdo. They soon achieved their aim to become the number one flowcharting application and so they went after other usage scenarios, such as network diagramming, organization charts, and building plans. In 1999, Microsoft bought Visio Corporation and Visio gradually became Microsoft Office Visio, meaning that all add-ons had to be written in a certain manner, and the common Microsoft Office core libraries like the Fluent UI were ever more increasingly employed.
Flowcharting still accounts for 30% of the typical uses that Visio is put to, but the core product did not substantially enhance its flowcharting abilities. There were some add-ons that provided rules, perhaps most notably for Data Flow Diagrams (which came and went); UML and Database Modelling, and many third parties have built whole flowcharting applications based on Visio. What all of these enhancements have in common is the imposition of a structure to the diagrams, which necessarily means the adoption of one rule set or another. There are a lot of competing and complementary rule sets in use, but what is important is that the chosen rule set fits the purpose it is being used for, and that it can be understood by other related professionals.
It is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, but the particular thousand words understood by each individual are more likely to be the same if the picture was created with commonly available rules. The structured diagramming features and Validation API in Visio 2010 enable business diagramming rules to be developed, reviewed, and deployed. The first diagramming types to have these rules applied to are process flowcharts, reminiscent of the vertical markets attacked by the first versions of Visio itself, but these rules can and will be extended beyond this discipline.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Overview of Process Management in Microsoft Visio 2010, introduces the new features that have been added to Microsoft Visio to support structured diagrams and validation. You will see where Visio fits in the Process Management stack, and explore the relevant out of the box content.
Chapter 2, Understanding the Microsoft Visio Object Model, explains the Microsoft Visio 14.0 Type Library and the key objects, collections, and methods in the programmer's interface of Visio, where relevant for structured diagrams.
Chapter 3, Understanding the ShapeSheet™, explains the Microsoft Visio ShapeSheet™ and the key sections, rows, and cells, along with the functions available for writing ShapeSheet™ formulae, where relevant for structured diagrams.
Chapter 4, Understanding the Validation API, explains the Microsoft Visio Validation API and the key objects, collections, events, and methods in the programmer's interface for Visio diagram validation.
Chapter 5, Developing a Validation API Interface, is devoted to building a useful tool, called Rules Tools, to enable the tasks to be performed easily as Microsoft Visio 2010 does not provide a user interface to the Validation API for rules developers to use.
Chapter 6, Reviewing Validation Rules and Issues, will extend the tool, started in Chapter 5, to provide an import/export routine of rules to an XML file or to an HTML report, and a feature to add issues as annotations in Visio diagrams.
Chapter 7, Creating Validation Rules, will use the tool created in the previous chapter to create rules for structured diagramming. This chapter will look at common ShapeSheet™ functions that will be useful for rules, and the new Validation functions. It will also go through different scenarios for creating rules, especially with regard to Filter and Test Expressions.
Chapter 8, Publishing Validation Rules and Diagrams, will go through different methods for publishing Visio validation rules for others to use.
Chapter 9, A Worked Example for Data Flow Model Diagrams, presents a complete cycle for writing validation rules for the Data Flow Model Diagram methodology. Validation rules are created using the Rules Tools add-in developed in previous chapters, although alternative VBA code is provided.
What you need for this book
The following software products are used in this Microsoft Visio 2010 Business Process Diagramming and Validation book:
Who this book is for
This book is primarily for Microsoft Office Visio users or developers who want to know how to use and extend the new Validation Rules in Microsoft Office Visio 2010 Premium Edition. There are some rule sets available out of the box, but the capability can be added to many sorts of diagramming, whether they are process flows, network cabling drawings, or risk dependency diagrams, for example. This is not a Visio SmartShape developer manual or a Visio automation guide, although these subjects are explored when relevant for writing validation rules, but it does shed light on the possibilities with this new powerful feature of Microsoft Office Visio 2010. This book will be an essential guide to understanding and creating structured diagramming rules, and will add developer tools that are not in the out of the box product.
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Chapter 1. Overview of Process Management in Microsoft Visio 2010
Process flow diagrams have long been a cornerstone of Visio's popularity and appeal, and, although there have been some usability improvements over the years, there have been few enhancements to turn the diagrams into models that can be managed efficiently. Microsoft Visio 2010 sees the introduction of two features that make process management achievable and customizable.
In this chapter, you will be introduced to the new features that have been added to Microsoft Visio to support structured diagrams and validation. You will see where Visio fits in the Process Management stack, and explore the relevant out of the box content.
What is new in Visio 2010 for Process Management?
Firstly, Microsoft Visio 2010 introduces the new Validation API for structured diagrams, and provides several examples of this in use, for example with the new BPMN Diagram and Microsoft SharePoint Workflow templates, and the improvements to the Basic Flowchart and Cross-Functional Flowchart templates, all of which are found in the Flowchart category.
Templates in Visio consist of a predefined Visio document that has one or more pages, and may have a series of docked stencils (usually positioned on the left-hand side of workspace area). The template document may have an associated list of add-ons that are active whilst it is in use, and, with Visio 2010 Premium Edition, an associated list of structured diagram validation rule sets as well.
Secondly, the concept of a Subprocess has been introduced. This enables processes to hyperlink to other pages describing the subprocesses in the same document, or even across documents. This latter point is necessary if subprocesses are stored in a document library, such as Microsoft SharePoint.
The following screenshot illustrates how an existing subprocess can be associated with a shape in a larger process:
In addition, a subprocess page can be created from an existing shape, or a selection of shapes, in which case they will be moved to the newly-created page.
There are also a number of new ease-of-use features in Microsoft Visio 2010 to assist in the creation and revision of process flow diagrams. These include:
However, this book is not about teaching the user how to use these features, since there will be many other authors willing to show you how to perform tasks that only need to be explained once. This book is about understanding the Validation API in particular, so that you can create or amend, the rules to match the business logic that your business requires.
Visio Process Management capabilities
Microsoft Visio now sits at the top of the Microsoft Process Management Product Stack, providing a Business Process Analysis (BPA) or Business Process Modeling (BPM) tool for business analysts, process owners/participants, and line of business software architects/developers.
Of course, your particular business may not have all, or parts, of the stack, but you will see in later chapters how Visio 2010 can be used in isolation for business process management to a certain depth.
If we look at the Visio BPM Maturity Model that Microsoft presented to their partners, then we can see that Visio 2010 has filled some of the gaps that were still present after Visio 2007. However, we can also see that there are plenty of opportunities for partners to provide solutions on top of the Visio platform.
Throughout this book we will be going into detail about Level 5 (Validation) in Visio 2010, because it is important to understand the core capabilities provided in Visio 2010. We will then be able to take the opportunity to provide custom Business Rule Modeling and Visualization.
The foundations of structured diagrams
A structured diagram is a set of logical relationships between items, where these relationships provide visual organization or describe special interaction behaviors between them.
The Microsoft Visio team analyzed the requirements for adding structure to diagrams, and came up with a number of features that needed to be added to the Visio product to achieve this:
