hyperlink to file accessable by anyone on my companies server (VISIO)

Question

(in Visio) By clicking the flowchart block, going to insert and link, i can link the block to a local file on my computer, that can then be accessed by control + clicking on the block
Currently, the link automatically saves as C:/Users/<my username>/....file.doc
it works perfectly, but I need to share this flow chart with my co workers, and when they try control + clicking they get error message
cant access file C:/Users/<my username>/....file.doc because its using my username
if it was C:/Users/<their username>/....file.doc they would be able to access because it is a company shared location
I know in file explorer it is possible to use %USERPROFILE% to be C:/Users/<Current users username> but this trick does not work in Visio
Any advice on solving this particular issue?

Answer 1

The ...file.doc is stored in every userprofile folder?

Maybe storing the file in a central share on a server is a better option. This would look like this:

This way everyone with read permission on the file share is able to open the ...file.doc by ctrl + click

If it's only one computer where the file is stored and the users are working with you can create a local folder (not in the profile folder of a user) to store the file. The Hyperlink would be than "C:\TestData\TestFile.rtf".

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(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)

Regards
Andreas Baumgarten

Answer 2

@Thomas Pitera ,

I think it is an expected behavior, it needs a full path name, the environment variables are not supported in your case.

Please refer to AndreasBaumgarten's suggestion as a workaround.

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Answer 3

@Andreas Baumgarten i tried your suggested answer

and get
How do i store <servername> properly so it works?

For your reference, our server location is at C:/Users/<username>/CompanyName for each individual, so if i can somehow store the fact that the username changes, then it would work

Let me try rephrasing how i ask the question:
I have my visio file and my block links to the file, i will put the file in the same folder
I send you a zip file containing the visio file and the linked file
when you control + click I want the functionality of opening the document to work for you

work around that i can think of but dont know how to implement

1. If I can attach the file to visio somehow that upon ctl + click it opens that is fine

I have just tried putting the file in google drive and providing the wizard with an Internet address link, which does work, but I would still like to use the server location because when changes to the document are made, it will bring up the updates rather than the outdated link in the drive.

Any other ideas? Please be specific about how to set the <servername> location if this is a viable option

Answer 4

<servername> is just a placeholder for the name of your server with the share. Sorry for not being clear.
For example Ift he servername is server1 the full path is "\\server1\Terrasmart\TS Eng - ......" (including the " if you have spaces in the filename)

To be honest: Sending around a zip file with the Visio file and the document doesn't really make sense. Users have to extract the zip where ever they want and you have to deal with different paths every time.

Best option, in my opinion, is to put the document in a share folder on one machine. Create a hyperlink like described before and just send the Visio file around.

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(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)

Regards
Andreas Baumgarten