Best way to manage Master Shapes, Stencils, and Templates

[jw76novice]

What is the best way of managing master shapes, stencils, and templates?  Here's my situation: I am working to create a "total package" Visio solution for my department that will also be shared with outside contractors.  This package will include some macro-enabled templates (*.vstm), a set of stencils (*.vssx), and one or more Excel files for Visio reports.  I envision these "master" files being saved in a network share folder and distributed via a ZIP package with instructions on how to "install" the files on each user's machine.

My concern is the best way to manage the master shapes, which may change over time.  My solution will also include a few "legend" sheets – equipment, instruments, etc. – that will display all master shapes along with some notes of our company-specific purpose and standards for each.  As I see it, I have a couple of choices:

• Manage master shapes in LEGEND drawing
  
  
  
  • a.   Changes are made to master shapes in the drawing, which is saved by overwriting the vsdx/vsdm file. (My network has Previous Versions of files at least twice per day.)
  • b.   Master stencils are updated by dragging the updated shape from the legend sheet into the stencil.
  • c.   Old masters are manually deleted from the stencil so there's only one master of each shape (i.e. Centrifugal Pump).
  • d.   I recently discovered that any Visio drawing can actually be saved as a stencil, but upon testing, I found doing this with my LEGEND document also puts masters I don't want in the stencil – Junction, Dynamic Connector, Title Block, etc.  These must be manually deleted every time the new stencil file is saved, so I don't think saving the LEGEND document (*.vsdm) as a STENCIL (*.vssx) is the way to go about managing master shapes.
• Manage master shapes in STENCIL document
  
  
  
  • a.   Changes are made directly in the stencil by right-clicking, Edit Master => Edit Master Shape.  File is saved by overwriting the previous file. (My network has Previous Versions of files at least twice per day.)
  • b.   Legend sheets are updated by dragging the updated shape from the updated stencil into the legend drawing.
  • c.   Old masters are manually deleted from Legend's Document Stencil so they don't accumulate.  I don't have to worry about breaking the link between a master and its instance(s) since the legend sheets will only have one or two instances of each master.  Delete them, then their document master, then drag in the new master from the stencil to replace the old instances.  For example, there will be two instances of "Centrifugal Pump" on the legend sheet to show horizontal vs. vertical discharge, which is the same shape with some ShapeSheet formulas to just display the shape differently.
  • d.   This solution also allows my LEGEND sheets to simply be additional foreground pages in the same template document.  If instead I wanted to use the "save drawing as stencil" approach, every legend sheet would have to be its own document.

At this point, I'm pretty certain option 2 is the better way to go, but I thought I would get some input from the excellent Visio Guy forum community before I start creating all my new masters.  My fear is there's something I'm not seeing or simply do not know about managing shapes over time that will make me regret the path I chose upfront.

OK, another related question.  Should I include a version number in my master shape names?  For example, Centrifugal Pump.1, Centrifugal Pump.2, etc.  I would never have two versions of the same shape in a stencil – this is merely a revision number, not an "alternative shape" number.  (I'm also planning a User.ShapeVersion cell in each shape that should be manually incremented by the shape developer, but I'm not yet sure how this cell might ultimately be used – just seems like a good idea.)

THANK YOU for reading all the way through my first VisGuy forums post!  I look forward to reading some excellent responses!

[Yacine]

OK, another related question.  Should I include a version number in my master shape names?  For example, Centrifugal Pump.1, Centrifugal Pump.2, etc.  I would never have two versions of the same shape in a stencil – this is merely a revision number, not an "alternative shape" number.  (I'm also planning a User.ShapeVersion cell in each shape that should be manually incremented by the shape developer, but I'm not yet sure how this cell might ultimately be used – just seems like a good idea.)

Version control is a good idea. But don't use an index in the master name, rather use a dedicated version field. eg: a pump will always be a pump (prop.equipmentType), but from version 1 or 2 (Prop.version or user.version).

As for the other questions: there are other people here, much more experienced in deploying Visio solutions, I'll leave it up to them to comment your post.

Cheers,
Y.