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Visualize facility management information with Office Visio 2007
Applies to: Microsoft Office Visio 2007
 Microsoft Office Visio 2007 is the market-leading diagramming software for business and IT professionals. Visio 2007 enables facility management professionals to easily and effectively visualize, explore, and communicate facility information. Facility managers can use Visio 2007 to map office layouts, visualize and track asset data, and communicate facility information.
Download a free trial and see first-hand how quickly and easily you can create effective great-looking diagrams.
In this article
Visualize complex facility information to better understand it
Facility managers can visualize a building’s floor plan, electrical wiring, HVAC components, security system, and more using the broad array of floor, space, and site planning templates in Visio Professional 2007. Facility managers can also use Visio Professional 2007 to track asset data for move management, equipment maintenance, and energy utilization projects.
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Easily design and layout offices
Visio Professional 2007 includes templates, shapes, and tools needed to create scaled floor and space plans for individual rooms or entire floors in a building. Facility managers can start by using the office layout template to create scaled layouts for individual offices, and then add details like walls, electrical symbols, cubicle layouts, furniture, and accessories to visualize the floor or building layout.
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Insert CAD Drawings into Visio 2007 floor and space plans
Existing computer-aided design (CAD) drawings can be visualized in Visio Professional 2007 using the CAD importation functionality. Facility managers can easily import layouts or building shells created in CAD programs, and then annotate them or use them as backgrounds.
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Reuse existing Visio templates to maximize productivity and provide visual consistency
Repurpose space plans as seating charts and as documentation for floor plan distribution, office relocation, and even emergency response planning. For example, the space planning template and tools included in Visio Professional 2007 make it easy for facility managers to create a space plan by using existing images, Visio diagrams, and CAD drawings.
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Explore facility information to identify trends and issues and act on them
Visually drill down on facility data to identify trends, issues, and exceptions that would be otherwise hard to spot in complicated spreadsheets and databases. These insights can then be used to make more informed business decisions.
- Track resource details by importing data into plans
Get a complete picture of processes, projects, and systems by linking diagrams in Visio Professional 2007 to data. Facility managers can track and report on data such as space use, space name, asset number, manufacturer, and serial number by importing it from Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange Server, and other ODBC-compliant data sources.
- Add descriptive details to shapes
Visio Professional 2007 enables the labeling and color coding shapes in space and floor plans by elevation, area, capacity, name, height, use, and zone. You can easily set, view, and customize display options such as whether to display walls as single or double lines, or display door frames, headers, and thresholds for your space plans.
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Communicate facility information with a broad audience
The ability to share facility plans with a broad audience helps facility managers communicate information easily and make timely, informed decisions. Facility managers can create multiple views of the same business data to gain further insight, and report their findings to the entire organization using Visio Professional 2007.
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Get started Visio resources for facilities management
Help and how-to |
Create a plumbing and piping
plan |
Use the plumbing and piping plans template to show the location of fixtures, pipes, and valves. You can create plumbing and piping plans on a blank page or as a layer in an existing floor plan. |
| Create a site plan |
Create architectural site plans and garden landscape plans. |
| Create an HVAC plan |
Use the HVAC Plan template to lay out heating, ventilation, and cooling ductwork. You can create HVAC plans on a blank page or as a layer in an existing floor plan. |
| Create a space plan |
Use the Space Plan template to create a drawing that uses space shapes and resource shapes to track the approximate location of resources in a floor plan. |
| Create an office layout |
Use the Office Layout template in Visio 2007 to draw layouts for individual offices, including walls, electrical symbols, cubicle layouts, office furniture, and office accessories. |
| Overview of data connection features in Visio 2007 |
Each shape in a Visio diagram can show a different set of data. If the data that you want to work with is already stored in a workbook or database table, you can import that data directly into Visio shapes. |
Import data from Excel, SQL
Server, SharePoint sites, and
other external sources |
Import and display data directly on your shapes by connecting to the data source and importing data into your drawing, then linking the imported data to shapes. |
| Enhance your data with data graphics |
Convey information powerfully and succinctly by adding data graphics to your diagrams. |
Use Visio with other Microsoft
Office programs |
Read how Visio 2007 offers seamless integration with other 2007 Office release programs. |
| Measure shapes in Visio |
Read about the five different ways to measure shapes in Visio 2007. |
Communicate schedule details
with a Visio Gantt chart |
Use graphical elements such as bars and arrows in Gantt charts to communicate detailed task and schedule information to managers or other team members. |
| Create a timeline to show a snapshot of your schedule |
Capture and communicate project milestones with a Visio 2007 timeline.
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