Importing AD into Visio

[Sarah]

Is it possible to import the full Active directory
information into Visio, and do you have to be local on
the machine or can it be done another way.

Thanks Sarah

 

[al]

I've imported many AD structures into Visio. No you don't
have to be local to the server, you do however have to be
able to logon with administrator privileges. A word of
caution. The image appears to be stored as a binary large
object (blob) in the document, so the file can get very
large. I was unable to find anyway to programmatically
interface with the image, so manipulation and viewing is
appears to be a manual process.
Al

 

[Randall Arnold]

According to Visio Help, the wizard for that import is located under the
Plan menu. There is no Plan menu in my copy of Visio 2003 Professional
beta. Any idea why not?

Randall Arnold

 

[al]

when I investigate my copy of visio2002 (with the vent add-
on) there are 36 libraries included with visio 2002. Visio
2003 only shows 23 libraries. Among the missing are
directory services.....
al

 

[Randall Arnold]

I'm confused. I see stencils for AD in my Visio 2003 beta, just not the
Plan menu item that supposedly provides access to the wizard in question.

I wish I'd thought to check this out while the beta was still active...

Randall Arnold

 

[al]

I apologize if I sound negative. But if you don't want to
increase the real price by 50%, then just reduce the
functionality by 30% and move the other stuff to products
that the customer has to pay more for......

M$ started this with Visio by eliminating the
autodiscovery engine (they discovered the price to
function ratio wouldn't support what they wanted),
continued by moving the modeling and database functions to
the Enterprise products, and now.....

 

[Randall Arnold]

I hear you. So my assumption is now that the functionality was removed from
Visio 2003 Pro (or earlier), and the Help info is out of date.

I have a contact on the Visio team; I'll ask him what's up.

Thanks,

Randall Arnold

 

[Randall Arnold]

Here's the reply from MS:

""If the feature you mention below is the Auto Discovery and Layout, it is
no longer available. We discontinued the Visio Enterprise Network tools
last July and it is not compatible with the new Visio 2003 release.

You can diagram your Active Directory manually and we do have an Active
Directory Objects stencil. If you do a help search with "Active
Directory" in the latest release you get the right help data."

Doesn't make me happy. I promised this to a customer thinking surely it was
still an option!

grrrr....

Randall Arnold