Specify what master is used to create a Sub-Process

Microsoft Visio 2010 Premium includes new features to help you define sub-processes within your diagrams.

Let’s say you select a few shapes on the page and click on the ‘Create from Selection’ button from the Process tab on the Ribbon, several actions take place.  A new page is created, the selected shapes are moved from the current page to this new sub-process page, the shapes that were moved are replaced with a sub-process shape, and a hyperlink is added to the shape to help you navigate.

After showing this functionality to a few solution developers I was immediately asked if there is a way to specify what shape is used as the “replacement” shape when the ‘Create from Selection’ button is clicked, and the answer is, yes this is possible!

Follow this simple two step process for enabling this functionality in your templates:

1. Add a User cell to your document sheet to specify the name of the master to use for this function.

FYI, Don’t forget about the new button on the Developer toolbar for accessing the Document’s ShapeSheet…

2. Make sure the master that you specify is located on the document stencil.