Juniper Networks Custom Visio Shapes

Juniper Networks supports staff and customers with Visimation shapes

Since 2000, Visimation has been providing Juniper Networks with tools to help its internal sales engineers and external customers illustrate equipment configurations. Visimation produces Visio stencils for each Juniper product line, which contain chassis shapes that may be inserted into various parts.

Anticipating future needs, Visimation built shapes that link to external programs, automating drawing tasks and generating parts lists for proposals. The user drags-and-drops a chassis from the stencil into a drawing, populating the chassis with components such as power supplies, cards, and modules.

Early on, Visimation programmed Microsoft Visual Basic® for Applications (VBA) code into the stencils so that the parts automatically snap in place and resize properly when dropped into a chassis, even if it has been enlarged. Additional VBA code provided the ability to toggle between front and rear views of the same populated chassis rather than requiring separate views for each. The portability of this code enables users to open the stencil with any new or existing Visio drawing and use its automation features without requiring installation of a separate program or Visio template.

In 2005, Visimation began “refurbishing” Juniper’s shapes to remove VBA code that would trigger Windows security warnings considered an inconvenience to users. Visimation developed sophisticated Visio ShapeSheet formulae to enable all of the key features of the VBA version to be active without the use of code. New features were also added such as direct links to Juniper’s online catalog product pages. Juniper users and customers can take advantage of these features immediately by simply opening the Visio stencil without having to install security certificates for each stencil.

With the help of Visimation, Juniper sales engineers easily assemble professional quality diagrams of proposed systems with minimal Visio training and reduce drawing time by at least 50% over previous methods. Additionally, by adding useful product information to each drawing, these detailed and compelling graphics deliver a superior level of service to Juniper customers. The graphics created also support future systems, currently in development by Visimation, which will further improve productivity and quality for Juniper.