You can assign multiple categories and subcategories to Visio shapes, such as Elevation and Plan. Once assigned, you always know what shape you drop on a page.

When assigning a shape to a category or subcategory, you are also assigning a category or subcategory to a shape. Since we do not have hard-coded categories in shapes anymore, we can assign the same shape to multiple categories. This drastically cuts down on the number of shapes the user has to deal with, and now a single “Flat Panel TV” shape can be assigned across all of the relevant categories.

To access this feature, within the Visio interface, click on a page tab, e.g., Elevation View.

1/ In the D-Tools Si window, click the Shapes tab, then click on the shape to which you want to assign a category or subcategory.

In this example, I chose the "Flat Panel TV" shape from the Elevation Shapes stencil.

2/ Right-click the shape and choose Assign Categories.

This will open the Assign Categories to Shape form.

To start, we have prepopulated all of the categories, subcategories, and shapes, so when you start the software, it pretty much has the correct category assignments already in place.

Notice the "Assigned Categories" section above already has selections made. However, if you create your own data or download other data, the categories and spellings can be all over the place, and you can easily add them to the list.

3/ You can use the various filters to narrow down any additional categories and subcategories you wish to assign to the shape. The "Display" filter allows you to easily see which categories are already assigned and which ones need assignment.

There is also a Search function as well as a Type filter to allow you to filter down to the categories associated with specific category types.

4/ Use the arrows to move the selected categories to the "Assigned Categories" section.

Once a shape has been assigned to a category, you will get the proper shape no matter how you add the shape to the Visio page.

When you drag the shape from the Shape Tree to the drawing page, you will get the proper shape, and the Add Product form will open prefiltered to all categories and subcategories assigned to that shape.

When you drag a product from the Product Tree to the drawing page, the shape assigned to that category and subcategory will drop on the page.