Chapter 26: Managing Facilities with Space Plans

Overview

Because Microsoft Office Visio 2003 can integrate information with graphical symbols, it has the potential to streamline tasks where you need to see the big picture as well as track countless details. Planning office space, moving employees, and managing facilities are examples of this type of task. In Visio, a space plan provides both a visual representation of a facility as well as up-to-date information about its contents that you can use to locate an office or other space, a piece of equipment or other physical asset, or even a person.

Managing office space and facility moves is a complex business, and the tools that Visio Professional provides—though always improving—are not entirely intuitive. However, they have been made easier with the addition of a new feature in Visio 2003—the Space Plan Startup Wizard.

This chapter explains how to use the Space Plan Startup Wizard, or set up your own model of a facility by preparing an existing floor plan and importing or adding facilities data. Then the chapter describes all you need to know about formatting and working with your space plan.

Note

The space plan functionality is included only with Visio Professional. It is not available in Visio Standard.