Is it possible to someway link a shape within a service Visio to an Element using a wildcard character, as described here:
- Element name mask, service name mask, or service alias mask containing wildcard characters ("?" and/or "*").
If wildcard characters are used, the shape dynamically refers to the first element in the view to which the Visio file is linked. If no element matches the name mask in that view, then the elements in the services and subservices in that view (and, if necessary, all subviews) are also checked.
Here is the current element tree (Numbered elements are Services):
- UAT
- UAT Playout
- 601 - ... - Playout
- 602 - ... - Playout
- UAT Distro
- 601 - ... - ... Distribution
- 602 - ... - ... Distribution
- UAT Playout
The ... are human-readable labels that may change so they don't match. Also each service has a property containing the ID number (i.e. 601).
On the "UAT Distro" shape I tried this:
- View: UAT Playout
- Element: [Property:id_number] - * - Playout
As well as creating a group and moving the "View" field to the group level shape data.
Is there anything else that will work without having to strictly enforce matching labels?
This is still not working for me. I found a workaround, but it is not ideal. I will open a ticket and post the response here.
To follow up on this, after chatting with Steve Purcell, the limitation is that when using wildcards in an Element field, the Visio will only search for children/sub-children of the View/Service the Visio is linked to. There does not appear to be any way to override this (I've tried using the View field within the shape, as well as in a parent group, and using shape options like StartResolvingFromParent & ForcePropertyFromParent) but nothing seems to work.
There are 3 solutions we came up with:
- Reorganize your Surveyor hierarchy so that the View/Service your Visio is applied to can be a parent of the Element you wish to link to.
- Add a hidden page to a View/Service containing the Element, then embed this page in whichever drawing you wish (Using VdxPage shape data), while using session variables to make it dynamic (You can use CardVariable or GlobalVariable scope).
- Create element child items from the View/Service containing the Element, then use ChildrenFilter set to "Name={regex pattern}" to filter out all shapes except the one you want.
Hi Nick,
I see that this question has been inactive for some time. Do you still need help with this? If not, could you select the answer (using the ✓ icon)?