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Microsoft 365 Blog
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Visio Web Access (aka Visio Services) Updates

Yana Terukhova's avatar
Yana Terukhova
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Sep 25, 2017

Visio Web Access will be discontinued on February 10, 2023

Users will not be able to access Visio services starting February 10, 2023.

 

Visio Web Access (aka Visio Services) allows online viewing of Visio diagrams stored on SharePoint Online and SharePoint On-Premise.

  • Visio Services render Visio documents in a Web browser without having Visio or Visio viewer installed on a local computer
  • It supports embedding of Visio Web Access Web Part in SharePoint let you add diagrams to a SharePoint page.
    • Embedded Web Parts can be linked to data sources so that when data changes, the visuals (shapes, text, etc.) change too
    • Web Parts can also be driven programmatically using the JS API

Recommended Steps for Customers Using Visio Web Services on SharePoint Online

Microsoft recommends that customers start upgrading to Visio Online. Visio Online enables high fidelity viewing, sharing, and collaboration on the web browser full page without installing the client for all Office 365 licenses. It also supports embedding Visio diagrams in SPO by using File Viewer Web Part and iFrames along with JS API programmability.

 

In addition, Visio Online supports richer scenarios such as find, pan/zoom, and Power BI integrated dashboards among other things. Moving to Visio Online will enable you to take advantage of the latest product innovations and ensure latest performance and reliability improvements that come from Microsoft’s Visio team.

Migration Assistance

Post the end of support period:

  1. Visio files from SPO will continue to open in Visio Online, but the user will not be able to switch to Legacy Service
  2. If you were using the Visio Services Web Access for web page viewing, you will need to resave your .VDW files into the new file format .VSD/.VSDX
  3. If you were using Visio Web Access Web Part, you will have to migrate them Visio Online File Viewer Web Part to embed Visio documents in SPO
  4. If you were using Visio Services Web Access Web Parts with JS APIs, you will have to migrate them to iFrame with new JS APIs in Visio Online to stop them from working

For more information about this deprecation and instructions related to switching to Visio Online, check out this blog.

Updated Nov 04, 2022
Version 10.0
visio

6 Comments

  • GauntletKI's avatar
    GauntletKI
    Copper Contributor
    Feb 27, 2023

    I love how we keep going from rebust systems that were great, to barely there systems. Must be the 80/20 rule. Give them a product that is 80% ready.

  • Umut Genc's avatar
    Umut Genc
    Copper Contributor
    Dec 20, 2022

    Hi Yana Terukhova,

     

    I tested new approach against some SPO sites. File viewer works well in modern pages.

     

    What about file viewer (part of page viewer web part) for classic sites? I could not get it working with all possible URLs extracted. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/display-a-web-page-folder-or-file-on-a-classic-sharepoint-page-7f61feec-9b3d-4805-a960-07636ba59527 for page viewer has "Displaying a file or a folder requires Microsoft Internet Explorer" statement, so I doubt the new way will ever work for classic pages.  

     

    Thanks

  • VARenee's avatar
    VARenee
    Brass Contributor
    Dec 09, 2022

    Hi Yana Terukhova - This page: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/announcements/visio-web-access-support-extended gives the retirement date of 2/10/23, yet also shows the sentence: "The retirement date for Visio Web Access in SharePoint* (in Microsoft 365) will be announced in the future."

    With that sentence still in it, it sounds as if the hard date may still be awaiting a future retirement to be announced.

    Please remove that sentence in the article so it's clear.  I've had 3 different people bring that article up questioning if the retirement is actually on 2/10/23 because of the misleading sentence noting a future date to be announced.

    Also, I still see nothing about a Visio Online File Viewer Web Part, as my previous comment and other articles like https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/display-a-visio-diagram-on-a-web-page-cecad64e-e0c4-49d0-93e0-acdd3709c57c#:~:text=by%20using%20the-,File%20viewer,-web%20part note, it is the File Viewer web part. That's another point of confusion I've had questioned.

    Thank you.

  • VARenee's avatar
    VARenee
    Brass Contributor
    May 18, 2021

    Hi, in this and other articles, "Visio Online File Viewer Web Part" is referred to, as if there is a web part named "Visio Online File Viewer", and I've been asked when that specific web part will become available to our tenant.

    From reading references, it sounds like what is meant is that the "File Viewer" web part is to be used for viewing files in Visio Online (and this appears to confirm that is right: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/display-a-visio-diagram-on-a-web-page-cecad64e-e0c4-49d0-93e0-acdd3709c57c). If it is, I request you please update this post and the page: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/announcements/visio-services-sharepoint-online-discontinued to clarify this.

    Thanks for considering my request. 

  • Alex Geller's avatar
    Alex Geller
    Copper Contributor
    Dec 04, 2017

    This is a real disappointment.  While i support advancing the technology, visio online is not ready for prime time.  Just a couple of issues i've encountered with Visio Online thus far, which are not present in Visio Web Access:

    • There is an undocumented limit on the length of a externally linked data fields on shapes of 250 characters.  This results in the timeout of Refreshing External Data on the Visio Online Document. Visio Web Access has no such issue.
    • Linking of shapes between pages is very hit or miss in visio online.  Especially if the link is located in the template.