Managing a large repository of diagrams

[timothy.r.aldrich]

As a Network and Services Engineer, I have a large library of Visio files.  Some of these are "One pager" overview type diagrams, and others are multi-page diagrams that walk through a complex architecture at various levels.  Ive tried to do a good job of organizing them in folders, and to use a "homegrown" macro in the document to identify the version, but it's still pretty easy to loose track of which diagram is the most current sometimes.  I'm envious of developers that can version control their changes to a collection of source code, and have been looking for a solution that can do that with Visio files.  I've looked at SharePoint, and it does have version control, but I'm wondering if anyone out there has another solution?

[Paul Herber]

Version control can work with Visio files, not just source code. I use version control for my Visio stencil development. I use Git as well as CS-RCS, even though the latter is now a bit long in the tooth.

[Nikolay]

SharePoint should be okay for versioning. In fact, it's built to store documents. So you could just store diagrams there in a document library...
I mean, it's a quite straightforward solution actually. Also, you'll get the browser (online viewer) out of the box...
Fail to see any problem with it. Except that you have to pay $5 a month, unless you have it already in your organization, and the diagrams are being saved/loaded noticeably slower.

Please note there is no side-by-side (or overlay) comparison between different versions like in word or excel (as far as I know), but still it's pretty decent,
you can (optionally) configure draft/major/minor versioning policies for your document library, or define "final" published versions that should be visible to others.

Visio also provides some support for SharePoint versioning (you will be able to see the versions from within Visio application for example).
To work with SharePoint online it's probably better to have the latest Visio version, it has "integrated" experience where you won't be even able to tell the difference if the files are stored in a folder or in a SharePoint library.

Git is good for storing source code, but not diagrams (or office documents in general).
It cannot show the documents visually, it does not have the concept of "draft/final", it does not have any concept of access rights, and it does not have user interface (it's a command line tool basically)

[timothy.r.aldrich]

Thanks for the replies. I guess, now that i re-read what i wrote, there are really several questions here:
First is the version control tool or system (sharepoint, git, etc).  I guess there really isn't much out there and I can use either git or sharepoint.

Second, the library/storage of files.  Seems like sharepoint again, maybe there are some clues here (https://sharepointmaven.com/implement-document-management-system-sharepoint/)

Lastly though (and I think the part that is Visio specific), is the "one file per diagram" or "one file per system" paradigm.  One file per diagram makes it a bit easier to version, and manage as it can be added to other diagrams to make systems diagrams.  Well, if it were easy to add pages from one file to another :-). 

Anyway, I was just wondering if there were other's out there with the same struggle, and if they found a way through.