Automatic Creation of Org Chart Using External Data in Visio 2010 – Part 2

This article is a continuation of part 1, which can get here.

Now, this screen looks somewhat similar to the previous screen but this is another important section of the Organization Chart Wizard. The previous screen is used to choose which fields to be displayed, while on this screen we are to choose the field from our data file that we want to add to organization chart shapes as shape data fields. The fields in the option normally are taken from the ones in our spreadsheet or data file. We can Add or Remove data file columns one at a time, or all at once by holding the CTRL key and making multiple selections. Once we have the entire data field as shape data fields, we click on Next.

When we have a very large organization to chart, most likely the chart will cover multiple pages. The wizard, at this point, will ask you how to deal with a split over multiple pages. When this happens, Visio will automatically break the org chart across pages.

By default, the second option is selected and it will split the chart with the name of top executive on top of the first page, and then Visio will arrange the other pages accordingly. However, there is also the first option where in we can manually specify how much of our organization to display on each page. Selecting this will take you to another organization chart wizard page where you can set out the pages that you want. This will take a little while to do compare to the automatic one, but this is the choice for you if want to control your org chart carefully. In this situation, let us choose the second and default option and have Visio do the pagination for us. You will notice there are two check boxes under this option.

The first check box (Hyperlink employee shapes across pages) means that there will be hyperlinks between employees when we produce a multi-page org chart. For example, if we have a manager at the top of a page, there will be a hyperlink to that manager on the page which shows their report. These hyperlinks will make it easy to find our way around a complex organization chart that has many pages.

The second check box (Synchronize employee shapes across pages) means that changes made on the information on one page will be synchronized wherever that information appears throughout the organization chart. Click on Finish after selecting your choices.

Once done, we should be able to see that the organization chart has reflected that information that we have in our spreadsheet. The advantage of utilizing the Organization Chart Wizard is that we have the ability to update the organization chart or we can change it back. It allows us to change the spreadsheet and regenerate the organization chart over again.

So this is a quick way to create an organization chart using the Organization Chart Wizard in Visio 2010. You can use this wizard to draw simple to complex organization chart. You can further improve the overall look of the diagram by formatting the shapes or adding pictures in your organization chart.

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Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!