I am using Visio 2010.
I have searched for hours and learned many things about Visio, but I am still confused on how to do this. I previously created maps with text callouts connected to dots that mark where a wall plate is. Every callout/dot represents a wall plate with any number of network drops, and contains lines of text for each port (the port label/description). I want the callouts to change color based on what vlan the ports belong to.
My approach so far has been manually creating an excel spreadsheet with two columns: Port & VLAN. "Port" is a port description on the switch and label on the wall plate. I then open one of my .vsd maps and import that spreadsheet into Visio. Then, I right-click the data and automatically link to all shapes with "Port" equal to the Shape Text. Here comes the problem.
Visio ONLY links my imported port data to callouts with ONE line of text (AKA one network port on a wall plate). Most of our wall plates have 2-4 drops, but my VLAN colors (so I figured out the coloring part) only work on the callouts with one network drop. I assume that this is not working because the Excel data does not "match" the callouts with multiple lines of text, perhaps because it wants to treat the entire contents of a callout as a single value... If only Visio let me link SEVERAL data values to ONE callout...
The point of this is for automation. It would not be reasonable for me to manually change the colors of tens of thousands callouts in the dozens of maps I made, not to mention trying to keep up with vlan updates.
Working callout example (changes color according to vlan): 1752A1
Non-working example (does not even link data values): 1784B1
1784B2
1784B3
Thank you and sorry for my naivety in Visio.