An inventory should account for assets, not every piece of text on a drawing. Start by deciding which objects belong in the inventory and which properties the recipient actually needs.

Use a copy of a Visio 2021 desktop drawing. For a small trial, prepare three fictional asset shapes whose Shape Data includes distinct Asset IDs and descriptions. Add an ordinary annotation that is not an asset. Keep the expected three-ID list outside the drawing for comparison.

Use an inspectable report definition

Open Review, Shape Reports. Select a relevant definition and use Modify, or choose New to build one with the Report Definition Wizard. Inspect its scope and included text/data properties. If a definition is missing from the list, check the drawing-specific-report filter.

Run the definition as HTML and inspect the local output. Excel and embedded-worksheet report formats instead require Excel to be installed.

Compare the reported Asset IDs with the three-item checklist. Investigate an omitted asset, repeated ID or annotation included as inventory. Do not accept the result solely because its row count matches three; the identities and requested properties must also match.

Define the inventory’s purpose

For a real drawing, ask whether the report is intended to count installed equipment, planned equipment or both. Resolve that meaning with the drawing owner before choosing a definition. A report cannot establish the real-world status of an object simply because a symbol was placed on the page.

Read the final descriptions as a recipient would. Abbreviations that are obvious to the drafter may be ambiguous in a standalone list. Include the revision and intended scope with the report so its context survives separation from the diagram.

Preserve the accepted definition and the drawing revision that supplied it. The finished inventory should be reproducible from identified shape properties, with its exclusions explained rather than guessed from the visible layout.

Sources: Microsoft official guidance.