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Even as you create an up-to-the-minute organization chart today, you know it could be obsolete tomorrow. Set up your organization charts so they are fast and easy to revise. Turn organization charts into dynamic communication and management tools by storing data in the shapes.

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Organization charts can be more than pictures — they can store data such as department or telephone number, or even protected confidential information about employees, such as salary or start date, behind the scenes.

This article describes how to:

• Make your organization chart easy to revise
• Revise reporting structure, position, location, and more
• Update an older chart by comparing it to a newer version
• Store phone numbers and other data and generate reports

And provides:

• Tips for handling large organization charts

Make your organization chart easy to revise

There are two keys to creating an organization chart that is easy to revise in the future:

• Create your organization chart using the Organization Chart solution, a set of specially designed shapes, wizards, and other tools.
• Let the Organization Chart solution automatically establish the reporting relationships in your organization chart.

To automatically establish a reporting relationship, drag a shape representing a subordinate position from the Organization Chart Shapes stencil, and drop it directly onto the shape representing the position it reports to.

To open the Organization Chart solution

• On the File menu, point to New, point to Organization Chart, and then click Organization Chart.

To create an organization chart

1. From the Organization Chart Shapes stencil, drag the Executive shape onto the drawing page.

   You see a demo of how to quickly add subordinate positions. Select the Don't show this message again check box if you don't want to see the demonstration next time you create an organization chart.

2. With the Executive shape selected, type an executive's name. Press ENTER, type the executive's title, and then click anywhere outside the shape.
3. Drag a Manager shape directly onto the Executive shape to establish a reporting relationship. Type a name and title for the new manager. Repeat until you've added all of the managers you want.
4. Drag a Position shape directly onto a Manager shape to establish a reporting relationship. Add a name and title for the new position. Repeat until you've added all the positions you want.
5. If you need more reporting levels, drag Staff shapes directly onto Position shapes to establish reporting relationships. With a Staff shape selected, type the name of the staff member.
6. If you want to change the layout of the subordinates under a supervisor, right-click the supervisor, click Arrange Subordinates, click the layout style you want, and then click OK.

Work efficiently

• To quickly create reporting relationships between one supervisor and several subordinates, drop the Multiple shapes or Three positions shape onto the supervisor shape.
• To convert one position to another position type, right-click the position, and then click Change Position Type.
• If you are creating an organization chart for a large corporation, see Make Visio 2002 organization charts from personnel files.

Revise reporting structure, position location, and more

Update an older chart by comparing it to a newer version

Compare two versions of the same organization chart to:

• Automatically update the older version to reflect changes in the newer version.
• Generate a report of the changes that you can use to update the older version.

Why would I compare two versions of an organization chart?

• Suppose that you have two versions of a departmental organization chart, one for distribution and one for your private use in which you have stored confidential data such as employee date of hire, salaries, and grade levels. When the organization changes, you only have to update the public version. By comparing it with the private version, you can automatically update the structural changes without affecting the confidential data.
• Maybe you have updated a departmental organization chart to reflect recent staffing changes, making your departmental chart out of sync with the chart for the entire organization. By comparing the departmental chart with the overall chart, you can generate a report of the differences and submit it to Human Resources so the overall chart can be updated.
• Say you spent a lot of time and effort formatting and laying out a special version of an organization chart for a presentation. Then, just before the presentation, you learn that the organization has changed. By comparing the formatted chart with a chart representing the new organization, you can automatically update the formatted chart without losing any formatting.

To update an organization chart from a newer version

1. Open the organization chart that you want to update.
2. On the Organization Chart menu, click Compare Organization Data.
3. Under My drawing to compare, locate the open organization chart.
4. Under Drawing to compare it with, locate the newer version.
5. If you have stored data, such as phone numbers, with the organization chart shapes and you only want to update some of the data, click Advanced. For Data values to compare, select the data fields that you want to update, and then click OK.
6. Click My drawing is older, and then click OK.

To generate a report of the differences between two versions of a chart

1. Open the newer version of the organization chart.
2. On the Organization Chart menu, click Compare Organization Data.
3. Under My drawing to compare, locate the open organization chart.
4. Under Drawing to compare it with, locate the older version.
5. Click My drawing is newer, and then click OK.
6. In the Comparison Report dialog box, click a tab to view the report organized in a different way.
7. Click Save as text to save the report in text (.txt) format.

Store phone numbers and other data and generate reports

Store data with organization chart positions when:

• You want the chart to serve as a public data source as well as to represent organizational structure. For example, by storing employees' phone numbers and e-mail aliases with their position shapes, you can turn your organization chart into a communication directory.
• You want your organization chart to serve as the central repository for either public or private employee data, such as phone numbers, dates of hire, salaries, and grade levels, from which you can generate reports in Microsoft Excel (.xls), Text tab-delimited (.txt), or CSV comma-delimited (.csv) format.

How do I store data in an organization chart?

In Visio, you store data in property fields associated with shapes.

All the shapes that you drag from the Organization Chart Shapes stencil onto the drawing page have predefined Department and Telephone property fields into which you can enter data.

You can add data to existing property fields and you can create your own custom fields.

To add data to existing property fields

1. Select the shape that you want to add data to.
2. On the View menu, click Custom Properties Window.
3. Click the fields that you want to add data to, and then type.
4. With the Custom Properties window open, select the next shape that you want to add data to.
5. When you're finished adding data to shapes, you can close the Custom Properties window by clicking the Close button.

To create custom property fields for shapes in an existing organization chart

1. With your organization chart open, on the File menu, point to Shapes, and then click Show Document Stencil.

   The Document Stencil, which contains master versions of the shapes in your organization chart, opens. By adding property fields to masters, you simultaneously add the fields to all the corresponding shapes in your diagram.

2. Right-click a shape on the Document Stencil to which you want to add custom properties, point to Edit Master, and then click Master Properties.

   The master window displays a large version of the shape in it. If you can't see the whole shape, on the Standard toolbar, choose a smaller magnification from the Zoom list.

3. Click the shape. On the Shape menu, click Custom Properties. In the Custom Properties dialog box, click Define.
4. Click New. Type or click information about your new property field for Label, Type, and the other options. If you don't understand an option, click the question mark at the lower-left corner of the dialog box.
5. If you want to add another new property field, click New again.
6. When you're finished adding property fields, click OK. Your new property fields appear in the Custom Property dialog box. Click OK again.
7. Click the Close button for the Master window to return to the organization chart. When asked if you want to update the master and all of its instances, click Yes.

   Repeat Steps 2–7 for each master to which you want to add new property fields.

8. When you're finished adding property fields, right-click the title bar of the Document Stencil and click Close. Save your organization chart.

Tip  You can also create custom property fields to use in every new organization chart that you produce. On the File menu, point to New, point to Organization Chart, and then click Organization Chart. Right-click the title bar of the Organization Chart Shapes stencil, and then click Edit. Follow Steps 2 through 7 above (substituting Organization Shapes Stencil wherever it says Document Stencil). When you finish creating custom properties, right-click the stencil's title bar, and then click Save or Save As.

To generate a report of data in your organization chart's property fields

1. After you add data to the property fields in your organization chart, on the Organization Chart menu, click Export Organization Data.
2. Under Save In, choose the location where you want to save the file.
3. Under Save as type, choose the type of file you want.
4. Type a name for the file, and then click Save.
5. The file contains a column for each property field, as well as columns for Name and Title.

Tips for handling large organization charts

Even organization charts for relatively small departments can quickly grow beyond the boundaries of a letter-size printed page. The following tips can help you set up a large organization chart so it's easy to work with and distribute.