In the preceding exercise, you learned how flexible data
graphics are and how easy it is to edit existing graphics.
In this exercise, you will create a new data graphic that contains
two graphic elements and apply it to a flowchart.
Your new data graphic will automatically apply color to process
shapes based on who is responsible for them, making it very easy to see
who does what in the process. The graphic will also use icons to display
the risk associated with each step in the process.
Important
Each process shape in this diagram contains several data fields,
two of which you will use in your data graphic. One field is called
Owner and identifies who is responsible for the
process step. The other is called Risk and
expresses the relative risk, on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high), of
successfully completing that step in the process.
Tip
When you open this diagram, you’ll notice that it was saved with
gridlines turned off. It was saved this way because you won’t be
dropping or nudging shapes. In essence, the drawing is nearly
complete, so it was saved in a state suitable for using it in a
presentation.
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On the Data tab, in the
Display Data group, click the
Data Graphics button to open the
Data Graphics gallery.
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In the Data Graphics
gallery, click Create New Data
Graphic. An empty version of the dialog box you used in
the preceding exercise appears and is titled New Data
Graphic.
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In the New Data Graphic
dialog box, click New Item. The
New Item dialog box appears.
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In the Display
section of the New Item dialog
box, display the Data field list,
and then click Owner.
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In the Displayed as list,
click Color by Value. Visio
creates a list of all of the values for Owner on this page and
assigns a color to each one.
Tip
The choice of colors Visio provides can be very suitable for
some purposes but may be too bold for other purposes. In the
latter case, you can display the Fill Color list for any field and
change the color setting. You can also leave the Text Color of
affected shapes at the default setting (as shown in the previous
graphic) or you can manually change it. Finally, notice the Insert
and Delete buttons to the right of the Color Assignments section.
You can delete any field values or add new ones depending on what
you want to highlight in the drawing.
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Click OK.
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In the New Data Graphic
dialog box, click New
Item.
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In the Display section, in
the Data field list, click
Risk.
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In the Displayed as list,
click Icon Set.
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Click the Style arrow to
display a list of icon sets. (Scroll down to see all of
them.)
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Click the set of colored pennants (flags) to select that icon
set. The New Item dialog box should look like the following
graphic.
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Type the following values in the empty text boxes to
the right of the colored flags:
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Red flag: 5
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Orange flag: 4
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Yellow flag: 3
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Green flag: 2
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Blue flag: 1
The center of the dialog box should look like the following
graphic.
Tip
In this step, you left all five condition lists set to
Equals. Realize, however, that you can create nearly any condition
you would like by clicking the arrow in that field to expose the
list shown on the left in the following graphic. In addition, the
text box on the right side of the dialog box includes a list,
shown in the following graphic on the right, that allows for more
sophisticated values than just typing text or a number into the
box.
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In the Position section of
the dialog box, ensure that the Use default
position check box is cleared. Then in the Vertical list, click Above shape.
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Click OK in the New Item and New
Data Graphic dialog boxes to close them.
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Press Ctrl+A to select all shapes on the page.
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On the Data tab, in the
Display Data group, click the
Data Graphics button, and then
click on your new data graphic.
Tip
You’ll notice when you rest on the thumbnail for your data
graphic that it has been assigned the generic name Data
Graphic. You can change the name by right-clicking on
the thumbnail and selecting Rename.
The process blocks in your diagram have been colored
to reflect the owner of each task. In addition, each step in the
process shows a colored flag that indicates the relative risk
associated with that step.
Clean Up
Save your changes to the HR Process
Map with data graphics but leave it open if you are
continuing with the next exercise.
The display of data graphics is dynamic, which means that if the
underlying data values change, the data graphics will change. You can
prove this to yourself by opening the shape data window and changing the
risk value for any shape. The pennant in the upper-right corner of the
shape will immediately change color.
Tip
If you want to copy a data graphic from one Visio drawing to
another, merely copy a shape displaying the data graphic from the
first drawing and paste it into the second one. You can then delete
the shape. The data graphic will remain behind.
