Anyone know how to use Visio with an external data source?

[shmokes]

I have to make extensive flow charts for one of my classes.  I've found that Visio will work in conjunction with Excel if I've input my data in a spreadsheet, but it doesn't seem to work like what seems like the obvious way it should work, so I wonder if I'm doing something wrong.

Basically I've got a long list of numbered items (Excel spreadsheet) that I drag onto my flowchart, where they are assigned a shape with a label indicating the item number.  The problem I'm having is that if I realize that my list needs a piece of data inserted into it, I have to fix all the numbers in the ID # column of the spread sheet, and every item below the item I've just inserted gets a new number, i.e., 56 becomes 57, 57 becomes 58, etc.

I can then go into Visio, where my data is showing at the bottom of the screen and tell it to "Refresh Data".  The changes will be reflected in the list, but not on the chart.  So if I've already put 57 on the chart, it will not change to 58.  It will still say 57, meaning that the shape is now referring to the wrong data entry. 

What's the purpose of being able to refresh the data if you still have to basically start your chart over from scratch?  It makes no sense.  That's why I figure that I'm missing something.  Anybody here know Visio well?

[Felsir]

What you want to do is change the "refresh settings". Rightclick on the datasheet in Visio: a context menu should popup. Now, I have the dutch 2007 version so I'm not sure what the english language labels are like but my guess is: "refresh properties..." it's the item right under "refresh" in this context menu. A properties dialog should pop-up; on the righthand side select the bottom radiobutton. It should say something like "use excel row order to identify records".
The radiobuttons let you switch between using a custom identifier such as employee-number or the excel row numbers. In your case you seem to need the latter option.

[shmokes]

Thanks.  I'll give that a shot.

[Felsir]

Just curious: did it work?