How to turn Excel data into a Visio flowchart

A worked example, stage by stage

1. An ID and a description

   Two rows, each with nothing but its position and its text: "Raise a travel request with dates and purpose" and "Estimate the total trip cost". In Microsoft's workbook these are Process Step ID and Process Step Description, and they are all a row strictly needs to exist.

2. The pointer to the next step

   Filling in the equivalent of Next Step ID is what makes this a process rather than a list. "Trip within the travel policy?" now carries two IDs, one going to the exception step and one skipping it, and the fork appears the moment the second value lands in the cell.

3. Labels on the branches, shapes on the rows

   "Finance approves the escalated cost?" has three exits, in this order: Approved, Cheaper option only, Refused. The middle one is the loop — it points back at "Estimate the total trip cost" to be re-costed. This is the Connector Label convention doing its work: three IDs, three labels, matched by position, and the order is what tells you which is which.

4. The columns a basic flowchart ignores

   The last two columns place each step in a phase and against an owner, and the flat flowchart becomes a cross-functional one — Employee, Line manager, Travel desk, Finance. In Microsoft's workbook these are the function and phase columns, which a Basic Flowchart diagram reads and discards.

How it works

1. Take the starter workbook from inside Visio

   Open Visio, or select File > New if you are already editing a diagram. Select TEMPLATES, then Flowchart, then "Basic Flowchart - Data Visualizer". From the template preview select "Excel data template" to get Microsoft's supplied workbook with the columns already headed, and choose a unit of measurement. Do this rather than chasing the sample-workbook links in the support articles: both of those short links now redirect to Bing rather than to a file. The Data Visualizer templates are documented as Visio Plan 2 only.

2. Make the data a table, not a range

   Format the block of data as an Excel Table before you go near the wizard. The wizard's first page asks you to "Select the Excel workbook" and then to "Select a table or a custom range in the workbook", so a range will be accepted without complaint — but Microsoft's own guidance is "Use an Excel table and not a custom range if you want to keep your diagram and data synchronized". Choosing a range is how people discover months later that Refresh Diagram was never going to work for them.

3. Give every row a unique Process Step ID

   This is the required column and the one with a rule attached: "each value in the Excel table must be unique and not be blank". The IDs are the identity of the steps, and the only thing Next Step ID is allowed to name, so use short stable values — 1, 2, 3 or A10, A20 — and never reuse one after deleting a row. On the wizard's Process Steps page this is what you map to "Process Step ID / Activity ID".

4. Write the shape text in Process Step Description

   Microsoft describes this column as "Text added to each shape in the flowchart", so whatever is in the cell is what a reader sees in the box. Keep it to one action per row and phrase decisions as questions, because a diamond containing a noun cannot be answered. It maps to "Process Step / Activity Description" on the same wizard page, which also carries an Accessibility section for alternative text.

5. Point each row forward, and name every branch

   Next Step ID takes "the Process Step ID of the next shape in the sequence". Where a step branches, put every following ID in that cell and put one label for each in Connector Label, which Microsoft documents as "For branching shapes, connector labels are represented as text separated by a comma". The two lists are paired by position: IDs 5 and 4 with labels "In policy,Out of policy" puts In policy on the arrow to 5. The wizard's Connections page is where you confirm the Delimiter and the Connector Label mapping.

6. Set Shape Type, then add function and phase only if you need lanes

   Shape Type is "the type of shape you want to represent in the Visio diagram", mapped on the wizard's Shape Types page, and the mapping is not restricted to the flowchart stencil: Microsoft confirms you can create the diagram "by mapping your process data to any stencil in Visio". Fill the function and phase columns only for a cross-functional flowchart — see /guides/how-to-create-cross-functional-flowchart-in-visio — then select Create and Finish. /guides/how-to-create-a-flowchart-from-excel-in-visio walks the five wizard pages themselves.

Frequently asked questions

What columns does Excel need to make a Visio flowchart?

Five in Microsoft's supplied workbook. "Process Step ID" is required and every value must be unique and not blank. "Process Step Description" is the text added to each shape. "Next Step ID" holds the Process Step ID of the next shape in the sequence. "Connector Label" names the exits of a branching shape, as text separated by a comma. "Shape Type" says which shape to draw. There are also function and phase columns, but those apply only to a Cross-Functional Flowchart diagram and are ignored by a Basic Flowchart diagram, so a plain flow needs the five.

How do I make a Yes/No decision in the Visio Excel template?

Put both onward IDs in that row's Next Step ID cell and both labels in its Connector Label cell, separated by a comma. Microsoft's wording is that for branching shapes "connector labels are represented as text separated by a comma". The two lists are read positionally, so the first ID gets the first label — IDs "9,7" with labels "Approved,Refused" sends Approved to 9. Nothing checks that the pairing is the one you meant, so a crossed pair yields a plausible diagram with the branches swapped. Confirm the delimiter on the wizard's Connections page, and re-read each branching row before generating.

Does the source have to be an Excel table, or will a range do?

Either is accepted. The wizard's first page asks you to "Select a table or a custom range in the workbook", so a range generates a diagram perfectly well. The consequence is later: Microsoft's guidance is "Use an Excel table and not a custom range if you want to keep your diagram and data synchronized", which means a range is a quiet opt-out from refreshing the diagram from the workbook and writing changes back to it. Since converting a range to a table takes a moment and converting a finished diagram takes rather longer, make it a table first.

Do I need Visio Plan 2 to generate a flowchart from a spreadsheet?

For this route, yes. Microsoft documents both the Data Visualizer templates and the Create Diagram from Data wizard as available only with Visio Plan 2, US$15 per user per month paid yearly at list price at the time of writing, and that is also the only subscription tier including the desktop app the wizard runs in. You can draw a basic flowchart by hand in Visio for the web on lower tiers, but nothing there generates it from a table. QueryChart is the same data structure without the licence step: rows with a next-step column in the browser, on any operating system, and the rows stay the source of truth.