Microsoft is working on a Visio Web App which can be used in Microsoft Teams as well as other services. As you can read in the recent roadmap feature ID 72235 commercial Microsoft 365 users will get core Visio capabilities. Its release and start of its rollout is planed for August 2021, as stated in the roadmap.

What are core Visio Web App capabilities?

Core capabilities for Microsoft 365 commercial users are

• create diagrams
• edit diagrams
• share diagrams

Conclusion, opinion and summary

Microsoft Visio is a tool to create professional diagrams like flow charts, complex processes and complex configurations. Of course, you could also use other existing Microsoft tools to create a diagram but Visio enables you for granular, more detailed and professional diagrams. One of the most common use case for Visio in IT is probably to document IT infrastructures and service landscapes in different levels of detail e.g. from a holistic view to system or even component view.

Adding Visio to Microsoft 365 commercial users is an opportunity to increase Visio usage overall and enable more people to build compelling diagrams for whatever purpose in a more appealing and professional way, although we do not yet know what capabilities will be available in detail based on the mentioned core capabilities.

I guess we are going to see some basic capabilities or lightweight capabilities that will not stay in conflict with the commercial Visio subscriptions (Visio Plan 1, Visio Plan 2). Maybe this is an alluring capability to make a broader range of users aware of Visio in order to transition some to the available commercial plans if more rich diagramming features are required for these group of users. To see what’s included in which Visio subscription you might want to check the Microsoft Visio Plans page. How and what is going to be available in the Visio Web App in detail is what can be tested and read as soon as it is available. Moreover, I assume that a documentation regarding the features might probably be updated as well in August. Stay tuned.

Additional resources

• Microsoft 365 Roadmap feature ID 72235 | Microsoft 365
• Visio service description – Service Descriptions | Microsoft Docs
• Overview of Visio for the web – Visio (microsoft.com)
• Visio for the web Help – Visio (microsoft.com)
• Visio (office.com)
• Microsoft Visio Plans