Locking Layers

[help.desk]

My name is Brian and I run IT help desk for a small school district. I started using Visio Professional 2010 about a year ago as a means to redraw our maps for all the schools in the district. We were working off 30 year old blueprints and hand draw maps in Microsoft paint and I saw the need for change and jumped on it. I knew nothing about Visio. I have no experience with CAD or anything like that. Well, I've done such a good job, that other departments have taken notice and want to add their own layers to my floor plans. So here is my problem....

I don't want them to have full access to these floor plans, because they can and will be destroyed. Is there a way to create a floor plan and lock certain layers, so that if I share that floor plan, other users only have the ability to add or edit their own layers? I will still be able to go in and modify those "base" layers and even tinker with their layers, but they will not have the ability to edit mine?

OR

Is there a way to import and export layers? So if instead of sharing a floor plan with another user, I just give them a copy. Then as this map becomes more then just a base layout, and departments start adding more layers, we can "swap" those layers back and forth between the floor plans without actually sharing the same floor plan.

Thanks guys. Any help would be appreciated.

[Yacine]

Have you explored visio's layer dialog? There are several options, like locking, visibility, etc.
They should provide what you need.
They don't however give 100% security as there is no password protection.
In matters of import/export, if you leave only the base layer visible, select all shapes and copy paste to another file you can realise what you want.
You might also want to explore the possibility of placing the base layout as OLE object in the file you distribute. But I can't recommend this solution, as this object is difficult to scale and newly created shapes can't align on the shapes of the OLE object.
Furthermore, placing the base on a background page, my facilitate the protecting issue.
HTH,Y.