Microsoft Visio 2013 : Collaborating on Visio diagrams (part 1) - Commenting

12/17/2014 8:31:30 PM

The enhanced collaboration capabilities in Visio 2013 take two principal forms: commenting and coauthoring. Both capabilities recognize the growing importance of collaboration among geographically dispersed workers by providing extra features when used with Visio Services, either via SharePoint within an enterprise or SharePoint Online. In the following section, you will learn how a group of people can write and read comments in a Visio drawing, even when some of them do not have Visio. In the section after that, you will explore the coauthoring capabilities of Visio 2013. Both exercises utilize the following Visio Brainstorming Diagram that summarizes the collaboration capabilities in Visio 2013.

Commenting

Commenting in Visio 2013 is much more flexible than in previous versions of the product and includes several important enhancements.

You can attach comments to shapes as well as to the drawing page.

Tip

If one shape is selected when you add a comment, the comment will be attached to that shape. If more than one shape is selected when you add a comment, the comment will be attached to the anchor shape . If no shapes are selected, the comment will be attached to the drawing page.
When you move or copy/paste a shape containing a comment, the comment travels with the shape.
A comment indicator appears on the top right of a shape or top left of a page that contains a comment.
You can view all comments at once by opening the Comments pane.
In addition to writing and reading comments in Visio, you can take the same actions in a web browser when the Visio diagram is located on a SharePoint server or in SharePoint Online.

Note

In this exercise, you will add comments to a Visio diagram. If you have access to either SharePoint or SharePoint Online, you will also read and write comments using a web browser.

Important

You need access to Visio Services on a SharePoint 2013 server to complete all of the steps in this exercise. Visio Services are available with a SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise Client Access License (ECAL) or by using SharePoint Online in Office 365.

Right-click the Commenting topic shape in the diagram, and then click Add Comment. Visio drops a comment indicator and an edit box for the comment body onto the page. The indicator is located in the upper-right corner of the shape and looks like a cartoon dialog balloon; the edit box appears above or near it.
Type Can users without Visio really add comments to a diagram?
Right-click anywhere on the page background, click Add Comment to page, type This looks like a good summary, and then press Esc. A comment balloon appears in the upper-left corner of the page.
On the Review tab, in the Comments group, click Comments Pane. The Comments pane opens and displays all comments that exist on this or any other pages in the diagram as shown on the left.

Be sure to notice the navigation controls at the top of the Comments pane:
- The previous and next buttons allow you to move through the comments sequentially (left graphic).
- The Filter by drop-down list lets you select categories of comments that you want to review or edit (right graphic).
Save changes to the diagram and then close it, but leave Visio running.
Switch to your web browser, navigate to the SharePoint folder in which you saved your diagram, and then click Collaboration Brainstorm Diagram . When the diagram opens, you’ll notice that there aren’t any visible comment indicators.

Tip

The default view for Visio Web Access is to hide the comment balloons unless the Comments pane is open, which is why no balloons are visible in your web view. However, the default presentation for comments in Visio is to show the comment balloons whether or not the Comments pane is open; the graphic that accompanies step 3 shows this behavior.
In the upper left of the browser window, click Comments. The Comments pane opens on the right side of the window, and comment balloons appear on both the page and the shape in the same locations where they appeared in Visio.
In the Reply box beneath This looks like a good summary, type Thanks, and then click anywhere outside the Reply box. Visio Services writes your comment to the Visio diagram.

Tip

If you or someone else has the diagram open in the Visio client when you attempt to add comments via your web browser, you will receive an error message like the one shown in the following graphic.
In the Reply box beneath Can users without Visio really add comments to a diagram? type Yes. This comment was added in a web browser., and then click anywhere outside the Reply box. Visio Services updates the Visio diagram.
Switch to Visio and open Collaboration Brainstorm Diagram .
On the Review tab, in the Comments group, click Comments Pane, which opens the pane and reveals the new comments that were entered in your browser.

Note

CLEAN UP Save your changes to the Collaboration Brainstorm Diagram drawing, but leave it open if you are continuing with the next exercise.

The Visio commenting feature makes it easy to connect with another person who has entered comments. If you point to the commenter’s name or photograph, a pop-up box displays his/her photo and up to four ways to connect with that person, including live chat if both parties are online at the same time. In the following graphic, only the email icon is active, because the other three require Microsoft Lync.

Clicking the arrow in the lower-right corner of the pop-up box opens a contact card for this person. The information that appears on the contact card will vary depending on what the user has made public in his/her profile. An example of the full contact card appears in the following graphic.