Visio Data Graphics - Free Tutorial

Visio data graphics is a great way to link your Excel spreadsheet to Visio. This is especially useful when it comes to custom shapes outside the remit of the standard flowchart. If you want shapes to generate automatically I suggest you look to the data visualiser feature as detailed in the Flowchart from Excel and Cross functional flowchart from Excel tutorials.

Car Sales by Colour exercise file - should you want to follow along with the above tutorial.

During this Visio data graphics tutorial you will see how creating a table in Microsoft Excel will benefit you when it comes to updating your Visio drawings and the advanced data graphics that are linked to that drawing.

Once you've linked your Excel spreadsheet you can drag and drop the various rows of your data to connect to the shapes in a Visio drawing. This can be any shape, and once you know this then the power of this feature is incredible.

Should you want know how to use Visio data graphics to link your data between Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Visio and you've no time to watch the tutorial, then here are the step-by-step instructions.

1. First, Convert Excel range on the spreadsheet to a Table.
   (Open Excel click on the data you want to link to Visio. Then press Ctrl + T on the keyboard to convert the range to a table).
2. In Visio click on Data. (Tab on the Ribbon).
3. Click on Quick Import.
   
4. Click Browse and find your Excel worksheet. The one in which you converted the range to a table.
5. Import the Excel spreadsheet.
6. Drag the rows you want to connect to the shapes
7. From the Data table use the Advanced Data Graphics section at the top or
8. Right click on the graphic you want to add the Advanced Data Graphic click Data.
9. Click Edit Data Graphic
10. Change the options as necessary
    

Progress bar issue

Silly me, I forgot to change the 'Maximum Value' to 1 for the progress bar. I'd left it on 0.3 which would account for the progress bar being almost full by 23%. Hope the following helps:

1. First, right click the car graphic - Data - Edit Data Graphic.
2. Double click on the Data bar.
   
3. In Maximum Value enter '1'.
   (Below is a screen shot from the Visio Data Graphics video tutorial. As you can see the Maximum value is set to 0.3. Please change this maximum value to 1.)
   

There you go! That's the whistle stop tour on Visio data graphics. Please watch the accompanying tutorial at the top of the page to get the most out of this Microsoft Visio tutorial on data graphics. As you can see by understanding how to link an Excel spreadsheet to Visio data graphics, your already great looking images will sing with data.

Should you want to take this further or maybe you're looking for a Visio training course for your organisation then please take a look at our Visio Training Courses:

Beginners Visio Training Course

Intermediate Visio Training Course