Migrate from Visio Data Visualizer — your Excel tables still work

What survived the shutdown

Data Visualizer stored your process in two places: the rendered Visio diagram (embedded in the workbook, served by the add-in) and the Excel table that drove it. The diagram is gone — after March 2, 2026 the service behind the add-in no longer responds, so embedded diagrams neither load nor refresh. The table is untouched. Every step description, connection, branch label, swimlane, and phase you authored is still sitting in ordinary Excel cells.

That table is the asset. Any tool that reads structured rows can rebuild the diagram from it — you don't need to redraw anything.

The column mapping

Data Visualizer's cross-functional flowchart template and ProcessMapping.app's editor describe a process the same way: one row per step, columns for text, shape, connections, and lanes. The mapping:

• Process Step Description → Box Text — the label inside the shape.
• Next Step ID → Line To — which step(s) this one connects to. Both use the same comma-separated branch syntax: a Data Visualizer value of "4,5" is a valid Line To value as-is.
• Connector Label → Line Text — branch labels, also comma-separated in matching order: "Yes,No".
• Shape Type → Shape — Start, Process, Decision, and End map directly. Map Subprocess to Process.
• Function → Horizontal Swimlane — each unique Function value becomes a lane.
• Phase → Vertical Swimlane — Data Visualizer phases (timeline bands) become vertical lanes.
• Process Step ID → the row number. The editor numbers steps by row, so if your IDs already run 1, 2, 3… nothing changes. If you used non-sequential IDs, renumber Next Step ID values to row positions.
• Alt Description → not needed — drop the column.

The migration, step by step

The whole move is a copy-paste with one syntax check:

• Open your workbook and find the Data Visualizer table (the diagram above it may show an error — ignore it; the table is what matters).
• Open the ProcessMapping.app editor — no signup needed.
• Copy the Process Step Description column from Excel and paste it into Box Text.
• Copy Next Step ID into Line To, and Connector Label into Line Text. The comma syntax carries over unchanged.
• Copy Shape Type into Shape, Function into Horizontal Swimlane, and Phase into Vertical Swimlane.
• The swimlane diagram assembles in real time as the columns land. Adjust and export as PNG.

What doesn't carry over

Honest list. The .vsdx output format is Visio's — the editor exports PNG in the free tier (PDF and SVG on QueryChart's paid tier). Custom Visio shape styling, theme colors, and any manual tweaks you made inside the Visio canvas after generation don't transfer, because they lived in the rendered file, not the table. And if a downstream system consumed your .vsdx files (SharePoint pipelines, Power BI shape data), that integration needs the Visio Plan 2 path Microsoft recommends instead.

For everything else — the process logic, the branches, the lanes, the phases — the table was always the source of truth, and the table is what you keep.

Why not just move to Visio Plan 2?

Microsoft's recommended migration is a Visio Plan 2 subscription plus the Visio desktop app. That's the right call if your organization needs .vsdx files or is deeply invested in Visio-based tooling. It is a paid per-user subscription, Windows-centric for the full experience, and the diagram editing moves into Visio — away from the spreadsheet workflow that made Data Visualizer appealing in the first place.

If what you actually liked about Data Visualizer was "edit the table, get the diagram," that workflow is the entire product here: the spreadsheet stays the source of truth, the diagram re-renders on every cell edit, and it runs free in any browser — Mac and Chromebook included.

Frequently asked questions