On a Visio Service Page I am trying to use the Property Variable "Site Id" to call an Element that exists at the site but not associated with that service.
In screenshot Element shape data is UPS EATON 300D [Property:Site Id].
So in this example the Element value I want to become UPS EATON 300D 4333
Seems the Property variables aren't valid in the Element.
How do I go about dynamically using a site id or site number as a value in Element Shape Data. Going through the videos and DDL can't quite get my head around how to achieve this one.
Thanks Sebastian,
1) yes shape is displayed when hardcoded.
2) The properties window is of the site view of which this service view is a child of
3) thanks for this suggestion – the [Property:Site Id] displays if I do that on the site view visio but doesn’t on the service view visio underneath the site.
4) dataminer 9.5 – just tried adding Options ForcePropertyFromParent shapedata but I think this is not available in version 9.5 so that still didn’t work for me either.
Seems like 3) Is the problem, i’ll write you a proper answer with some images.
The [Property:] placeholder will retrieve the property value from the current object to which the shape is linked. Since your shape is not linked to any element, the placeholder will not resolve to any value.
Follow these steps for a workaround:
- You'll need to wrap your current shape in another shape. You can do this by drawing a shape and right clicking on it Group > Group.
- Link the top-level shape to the object which has the correct property, in my example this is the root view (with ID -1).
- Now open the top-level shape and create your child shape. Set the following properties on the child shape.
By disabling the top shape, we don't have the mouse interaction of that shape.
The child shape needs to be enabled again.
The NoCopyElementProperty is require to stop view inheritance from the top shape to the child shape.
The ForcePropertyFromParent will make sure we retrieve the property from the parent object instead of the current object.
Please let me know if this works for you.
Thanks Sebastiaan,
Getting part way there. My top level shape has taken on the colour of the parent view indicating I have gotten part way there.
If I directly name the full name of the Element the child shape will appear but not when I use the [Property:Site Id] tag in the shape data value for the element.
I’ll have to give it another go in a newer dataminer system other than our v9.5 production system in case it’s the old dataminer verison holding me back.
When creating a group, you typically don’t have a visual shape for that top-level shape. It should act as a transparent parent shape. You should only see one shape in Visio, which is the child shape.
Hi Sam, I haven’t been able to reproduce this locally. Can you verify the following: 1) A shape is correctly displayed when hard coding the element value with UPS EATON 300D 4333. 2) The properties window which you have in the screen shot is of the service to which the Visio file is applied. 3) Display the [Property:Site Id] somewhere to see if the value resolves correct. On which version of DataMiner are you testing this?