Visio

[Debbie]

I'm using a rack symbol, and in that rack I want to
somehow tie all the eqipment that's in the rack. When they
click on the symbol it should show all the equipment that
in that rack. Could anybody tell me how this done, or can
it be done.

Right know we have an excel sheet(Excel 2000). We tried
the database but that didn't seem to work. So if anyone
could give me some suggestion I would really apprecited.
Thanks for all you help in advance.

 

[Matt B]

Hey Debbie,

When you say 'when they click on the symbol it should show all the equipment
in the rack' do you mean when they click on the rack symbol it will show all
the shapes of the equipment in the rack? Are these equipment shapes actually
in the rack shape itself or are they located on other pages?

You could keep a record of all the equipment shapes, in a particular rack.
You could store this record in the rack shape's 'User' or 'Custom
Properties' cells. From this you could click the rack shape, & have it make
the equipment shapes visible or not. You would also need a small form to
input the equipment shapes into the rack's record.

This may also be achieved with Layers, by assigning rack equipment shapes to
layers. All the racks may appear on one layer with equipment shapes grouped
by layers which represent each rack. You then need only turn the visibility
of these layers on and off.

eg. Layer 1 = All Rack Shapes
Layer 2 = All equipment shapes in Rack 1
Layer 3 = All equipment shapes in Rack 2
........etc.......etc.........

Kind Regards,
Matt

 

[Al Edlund]

Can it be done, yes. Can it be done easily, well that one is relative. There
are a couple of
strategies that might be applied. Matt has touched on two.
a.) include a set of custom properties that assign configuration/asset
information to a shape
when it is dropped on the page. This data would include the some of the
standard TIA606
data (network documentation standards) for in addition to rack; location,
room, floor, etc.
This data could be mirrored to a database for query. It is dependent upon
the user/documenter
to be correct and is manually dependent.
b.) once again the use of custom properties to identify asset/configuration
but additional work. ensure that when an object is dropped on the page it
has appropriate controls/connection points so that it may be 'glued' to
another shape. Then you could recurse and chase a 'hierarchy' of shapes.
Some of this was in the original VENT model that Visio stored in SQL/Access.
It's exposure is you need a sophisticated data model and some interesting
coding.

The issue with both of these is that you are exposed to having common data
in two places and keeping it in sync. A technique is to assign a data custom
property to a shape and every time the shape is updated, update the date
stamp. The correlary in the database is tougher. Last time I looked Access
did not have a 'record update event' tagged to a table, you had to do it
with a form. I think SQL may have the event for record update. This would
allow the code to compare date stamps to decide which was the more current
record.

So, Debbie how are your coding skills and have we answered your question?
Al