Last Update: Sep 04, 2024 | Published: Nov 12, 2013
It is possible to work with Visio drawings directly from SharePoint 2013. It takes a little bit of configuration and setup, but if you follow these instructions you should have no problems getting your users the ability to easily view and even edit Visio Graphics Service documents in SharePoint 2013. Making your Visio users happy takes a little bit of configuration and a little bit of training for the end users.
You might find it useful to create a new application pool to run Visio. If you’d rather use an existing application pool, you can skip this section.
$VisioAcct = New-SPManagedAccount –Credential (Get-Credential)
When prompted, provide the account username and password
Get-SPWebApplication | Foreach-Object { $_.GrantProcess*********TOUSER($VisioAcct.Username) $_.Update() }
$AppPoolName = “Visio Service Application Pool” New-SPApplicationPool –Name $AppPoolName –Credential $VisioAcct
This part is optional, but if you’re going to have Visio make connections into SQL or another data source, then now is the time to go ahead and create the connection.
Note: It’s really important that you keep this password safe. Keep it written down in the same place as you keep your farm passphrase, so you don’t lose it. You’ll need it when you add a server that is running the Secure Store service, or if you have to perform a restore on the Secure Store database.
I’ll stay in Central Administration for now, but you could perform these steps with PowerShell pretty easily.
You’re all set! It was easy, right?
There are several options, from creating the Active Directory user and application pool to the Visio service application itself and the Secure Store target application. But all in all, it doesn’t take a long time for you to get Visio Services working in your SharePoint 2013 environment.
Once set up, you’ll still have to train your users to save their Visio documents in a format that can be used. Only the latest version (.VSDX) and the web drawing format can be viewed in the browser. Older versions will still be opened in the Visio client application, so there can at least be an easy way to get the files opened so they can be saved as the new file type.
If you get through all of these steps, it should be working for you. If not, you have a couple of steps to take to remedy the situation. The fastest and easiest is to stop and start the service on server. You can also verify that permissions have been set on the content databases by using SQL management studio. Finally, if all else fails, try to create a new Visio Graphics Service Application. If the new service application works and the original does not, a configuration step was missed, but you can then remove the old broken service application without worry.
Let me know in the comments below how it worked for you, or you can always follow me on Twitter or Facebook.