Visio Import/Export in Process Designer
Things you need to know
- When creating a process in Visio there are few things the user needs to do to import into designer successfully
- Use Valid Shapes which import into designer
- There shapes are from ‘Basic Standard Flowchart’ and Miscellaneous Flowchart’ Shapes in Visio
- In order to add transition details and options in Visio, the user needs to add connector text on the connector from the transition to the WorkItem
- If a valid shape is not used, designer will ignore the shape during the import stage
Shapes you need to use to import successfully into designer
- Here is the list of the shapes we need to use in Visio when creating a process to import into designer successfully
- As we can see the shapes come from the Miscellaneous Flowchart Shapes and the Basic Flowchart Shapes
Adding transition details in Visio
- To add transition details and options in Visio, the user needs to
- Add connector text on the routes from the transition to the subsequent WorkItem.
- To add connector text, double click on the connector
- A text box will appear, the user here needs to type in what the selectable option in the process is for the process to go down this route
- When importing the diagram in designer a context object for the transition will be created
- The transition options for the process comes from the connector text the user has inputted in the Visio diagram
Importing a Process from Visio into Process Designer
- Once the user has created the process in Visio, its time to import into designer on the WebPlatform
- Go into the Process List in designer and click on the Import button in the process list grid
- A dialog box will appear asking the user if they want to upload a standalone process or update an existing process.
- The user can enter information for the process to be imported and also change the process name.
- The functionality for importing works by
- Matching the standard shapes in Visio to those of the WMS WorkItem types.
- The text inside the shape is imported as the WorkItem name and is truncated if necessary
- Invalid shapes (shapes that don't map to a WMS WorkItem type) are ignored
Exporting from process designer to Visio
- In Designer hover over the Export button in the process list grid
- A dropdown will appear asking the user if they want to
- Export to a Portable Process Format (.prd)
- Export to a Visio XML Document (.vsdx)
- Select Visio XML Document to download the process to a Visio Document
Troubleshooting Scenario: transition name is too long so process does not import
- When the user exports a process out of designer into visio, makes a change and then re imports back into designer, one issue the user may face is the transition context object being too long so the process does not import
- If this is the case, the user needs to ensure the transition is within the character limit (30) in order to import correctly into designer.