Welcome to the Archive of Visio Insights blog (2006-2018) web log, authored by members of the Visio Product Team. Our goal is to give you some insights into how Visio works, how you can best use Visio to accomplish your tasks and how others are using Visio in their businesses.
You can expect to find topics covering a wide variety of Visio functionality. We'll post information for End Users, Shape Designers and Developers, and you can view archived posts according to these categories.
We want this blog to be a two-way dialogue between the user community and the product team, so your comments are strongly encouraged. Also you can send us suggestions for future topics by clicking on the Contact link.
Visio Ecosystem
This blog is by no means the only source of information about Visio, so let's start by highlighting some of the current resources out there. We don't want to reinvent the wheel here. Our goal is to give you insights.
For end users, there is a wealth information and training on Office Online. You can find lots of help about basic tasks, tips & tricks, tutorials and online courses.
For shape designers and developers, MSDN offers a comprehensive set of documentation, samples and tools to assist you. In particular you can download the Visio SDK, which is essential for developing on the Visio platform.
There is an active community that participates in the Visio Newsgroups as well. This is a great place to ask questions about specific issues you have. This blog will address some of the frequently asked questions from the newsgroups.
For those that need direct assistance, Microsoft Product Support is available to help. Please utilize this resource to get your problems resolved. We are not able to respond to specific problems through this blog. The PSS team is highly trained and best equipped to serve you. IT Professionals may also be interested in the deployment and support resources on Microsoft TechNet.
Finally, we're not the only blog on the block. Here are some blogs authored by Microsoft employees or affiliates:
Eric Rockey - Visio 2007 features
Bill Morein - Data visualization with Visio
Chris Castillo - Visio solutions development
Mai-lan Thomsen Bukovec - General Visio blog (inactive)
Visio MVPs - General Visio blog
VisioJ - Japanese language Visio blog
Of course, that is just a small part of the overall Visio community. There are many Microsoft Certified Partners out there who offer their solutions, services and expertise. There are Visio champions in corporations around the world who evangelize Visio to their teams. There are also a number of enthusiasts out there who delight in helping people utilize Visio.
Visio is a popular application with a large and growing base of users. The community is robust and continues to expand. Now is a great time to increase the level of communication between the product team and the user community. We hope you will participate.
Mark Nelson
Visio Product Team