Visio Master Shape Data - dropdown from database

Question

I have a seemingly straightforward Visio question that I am trying to find out if it is even possible to achieve:

Can I create a set of master shapes, with each master shape representing a type of 'thing', for example it could be that one shape represents a monitor and another a keyboard, another a mouse, and so on...and provide the user the ability to select the model / product code / sku or whatever as a shape data field (eg/ Prop.Make, Prop.Model, Prop.SKU and so on) with the data for the dropdown being provided from either a database or SharePoint list?

This way the user will always be able to fill in current information for a shape by selecting the particular 'thing' that it is from the database and the appropriate value options are shown to them to choose from.

Is anything like this possible? It would certainly help with some of the designs that need to be done by less experienced users.

Any help greatly appreciated.

The Frog

Answer 1

If you use Visio 2010+ Professional edition (not Standard) you can use Data linking.

Answer 2

It is feasible, but requires some coding.

Key is to be able to connect to your DB (https://www.connectionstrings.com/), query it with a set of parameters that you would define, choose the right item from the set of returned rows, then populate the custom properties of your shape with this chosen item.

I hope you are proficient enough with a coding system (VBA, C#, ...) and the shapesheet. Otherwise you can use the solution suggested by Surrogate - choosing a row from a database table or query. But that is not exactly what you asked for.