The Database Wizard has been around for a good few
years. In fact, I was a beta tester of the add-on back in 1996 for Visio
4.5 (long before Microsoft bought the product/company). The Database
Wizard was a key element that distinguished Visio from any other drawing
package and, although it has not been brought right up-to-date, it
remains the only out-of-the box tool that provides two-
way communication with a database. Thus, it has its uses, even with the
advent of the new Link Data technology.
The particular diagrams I was setting up in those days were floor plans
for merchant banks, both in London and New York. The personnel changes
on the desk layouts were frequent, and the help desk needed to know
where everyone was, so I used the Database Wizard to link over 500 desks
on each floor to a view in a Sybase database. Then, at a push of a
button, the labels and colors of the desks changed to reflect the
current location of the staff. Moreover, a legend for the cost-center
colors was created.
There were some challenges to be overcome, for example, the Database
Wizard has an option to include an action to refresh a page, but not a
document. And, the Database Wizard can take a while to perform its
actions on large documents, but it also has its merits.
I was able to set up an administrator’s Visio document, which was used
to define the color fills and patterns for each cost center. This was
linked to a specific table in the database, so the user could use
standard Visio-formatting options, and then update the database with
these settings. The desk layout documents would be linked to a database
view that included these colors for the cost center of each person,
therefore, the desks were always colored and patterned according to a
predefined and consistent appearance. The desk layouts were only able to
read the database, not write, as the writing of desk to personnel
associations was done through a
change control process