Automatically generating shape data for database diagram in visio 2007

Question

I'm using Visio 2007 to create an ER diagram for an SQL server database. I've used The reverse engineer function to import the data from SQL server to Visio. Once a page is created, it is saved as a web page. Visio's Web diagrams have functionality to allow users to display the shape data by ctrl clicking on a shape in the diagram.

I want to put some/all of the data from database properties into the shape data for displaying on the diagram. I can do this manually. My problem is that my database has over 100 tables and i would rather not spend the next week manually entering shape data for each table. Is there any way to have visio Auto generate Shape data when i perform a database reverse engineer.

Answer 1

Once you have a shape linked to a row in your external set, if the data field name equals the Shape Data field name, the information will automatically populate. For example, if you have a bunch of Server shapes and your view is "Select asset_id as 'Asset Number', serial_id as 'Serial Number' FROM Serverlist", your shapes will auto populate those two fields.