Tridion 2013 works with both Visio 2010 and 2013, and removes support for older versions of Visio.  Today I tried to create a new Workflow using Visio 2013 and I would like to share an important tip that might save you some time.

The Tridion Visio Stencils are located in the ‘ADD-INS’ menu item.

However, attempting to create a new Workflow will be unsuccessful in your default Visio / Tridion workflow install.  You will see the following error message:

Visio blocks these ADD-INS for our own security (was there ever a problem with rampant Visio plugins??)

Solution:

1.  Go to File, Options
2.  Trust Center Settings

3.  File Block Settings 

4. UnCheck all checkboxes.  Yes, Uncheck them.   I know it seems unintuitive, but we are in the ‘Block’ settings and we do not want Visio to block us from opening or saving these item types.

5.  Select OK and then go back to your new Visio Workflow diagram.  It should allow you to create a new Workflow diagram now.

The icons all look almost the same, and the tooltips don’t give us any hints.  For me this was a struggle to figure out which save button to press.  Hopefully this will be fixed in a future SP.