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dosania
Copper Contributor
Jul 25, 2025

sql server 2019 how to reverse engineer a View using VS or Visio

 Hi,

 

I am trying to trace back, and document the lineage of a series of Views that have been created in SQL Server 2019 over many years.

Many of the views are quite complex and are Views built or several other Views, Tables and functions.  I need to unpick all of the dependencies and logic that has been used in creating these views.

 

I tried to use both Visio and Visual Studios 'Reverse Engineer' tools to do this, but this is not supported for SQL Server 2019 or later. 

When I connect my database to Visio and select the server and have the connection authenticated, the dialogue box greys out the Views checkbox. I have been told that Visio does not support reverse engineering for SQL Server 2019 or newer. 

 

The correct ODBC driver is installed, and I am working with a supported version of Visio (Visio Plan 2) and Visio 2505.

Is anyone aware of a workaround to this, and how I might use either Visio and VS to reverse engineer my 50+ views and find all their dependencies and calculations, outputting these in a diagrams that I can give to the engineers to easily understand and unpick?  Otherwise, this will take me weeks to do.

My company is not keen on using any Third party tools that we would need to install on the server, as these could cause a security issue, but any suggestions of anything that would be light touch would be most welcome.

 

Any help would be much appreciated.  Thanks!

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