SharePoint 2016 Visio Service Application, Step By Step Guide

Introduction

Vision Service is not new to SharePoint 2016, as we experienced it in 2013. There is no change in it compared to the previous version. This Service allows the user to render their Visio diagram in the browser without having Visio client installed on his machine. Vision Service also allows the rendering of the diagram on the mobile devices.

The user can publish Visio diagram directly from his Visio client program into SharePoint 2016. Also, Visio Service supports the multiple data sources, i.e in your diagram, you can connect it to Excel sheet or SharePoint list and publish it in SharePoint. If there is data, refresh Visio Service can handle it.

Compatible Visio Versions

As per the TechNet, Visio versions given below are compatible with SharePoint 2016.

Visio 2010 Professional
Visio 2010 Premium
Visio 2013 Professional
Visio 2013 Premium
Visio 2016 Professional
Visio Pro for Office 365

Note

Visio diagrams created in Visio 2010 must be published in SharePoint site as a Visio Web drawing (*.vdw) file. Standard Visio 2010 diagrams (.vsd files) are not rendered by Visio Services and require Visio 2010 to be viewed.

Support DataSources

As per the Technet, the data connections given below are supported.

SQL Server 7.0
SQL Server 2000
SQL Server 2005 (32- & 64-bit)
SQL Server 2008 (32- & 64-bit)
SQL Server 2008 R2 (32- & 64-bit)
SQL Server 2012 (32- & 64-bit)
Sheet information that is stored in Excel workbooks (.xlsx files) published from Office Excel 2007, Excel 2010, Excel 2013 or Excel 2016 hosted on the same SharePoint Server 2016 Farm
SharePoint Server lists that are hosted on the same Farm
External lists exposed in SharePoint Server through Microsoft Business Connectivity Services.
OLE DB or ODBC.
Custom Data Providers implemented as .NET Framework assemblies.

Note

The original data connection must be configured, using Visio. Refresh of data through any other mechanism into a Visio diagram is not supported.

Before starting

You need an account, which is a part of Farm Administrator group with local admin rights on the Server.
Service Account, which will run the app pool of Visio Service.
Unattend Service Account.
Secure Store Service is created.

Tasks

In this article, we will do the tasks iven below.

Secure Store Service (Please follow the link to create Secure Store Service).
Create Target Application in Secure Store Service.
Create Visio Service Application.
Add target Application ID.
Test.
Troubleshooting.

Create Target Application in SSS

This is an important step, we have to create the target application in the Secure Store Service Application.

Please login on Central admin site with Farm administrator account with local admin.
Click Application Management
Click Manager Service Applications under Service Applications.
Click Secure Store Service (KF-SSService).
In the Secure Store Service page, click New button from Ribbon.
On this page, please enter the information given below.
1. Name of the Application ID: VisioSvc
2. Display Name: VisioSvc
3. Email address: [email protected]
4. Target Application type: Group
5. Target Application Page URL: Use Default page
6. Click OK
On New SS Target Application, use the default values and click to proceed further.
On the next page, please enter the information given below.
1. Target Application Administrators: Farm Admin
2. Members: EveryOne
3. Click OK
4. You will see the New Target Application ID has been successfully created.

Now, Target Application Created and Last But most Important Step is to Set the Credentials.

Right click on VisioSvc and dropdown click on Set Credentials.
On this page, enter the user name, password and click to proceed, as shown.

This will complete the task.

Create Visio Service

Now, we will create Vision Service via Central admin.

Please login on Central Admin site with Farm administrator account with local admin.
Click Application Management.
Click Manager Service Applications under Service Applications.
Click New (top left) and drop down select Visio Graphic Service.
On “New Visio Graphics Service Application” page, please provide the information given below.
1. Visio Graphics Service Application Name: VisioSvc.
2. Create New Application Pool: KF-VS-AppPool.
3. Select Security Account: Krossfarm\KFSvcApp.
4. Create a Visio Graphics Service Application Proxy: Check the Box.
5. Click OK.
Wait for couple of minutes and this shouldn’t take long.
You will see Visio Service.

Visio Service successfully Created, next we will make sure that Visio Service Instance is running.

Visio Service Instance

Please make sure that Visio Service instance is started on the Server. To check, please follow the steps given below.

Click System Settings, followed by Manager on Services on Server under the Servers.
Service-> Server page.
Select the Server on which this Service should be run (As a recommendation, it should run to Application Server).
Now, make sure Visio Service status has started.

Configure Global settings

Now, we need to add the Target Application ID in Visio Services (which we created in the Secure Store service). For this, please follow the steps given below.

Click Application Management.
Click Manager Service Applications Under Service Applications.
Click Visio Service.
On this page, click Global Settings.
On this page, Enter the Application ID and click, as shown below.

This will complete the creation and configuration of Visio Service Application. The next step is that we will test it, if we are able to open Visio files in SharePoint.