Microsoft KB Archive/830303

= How to create flexible organization charts in Visio 2003 =

PSS ID Number: 830303

Article Last Modified on 3/24/2005

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The information in this article applies to:


 * Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2003
 * Microsoft Office Visio Standard 2003

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For a Microsoft Visio 2002 version of this article, see 301576.



IN THIS TASK

 * INTRODUCTION
 * MORE INFORMATION
 * Make your organization chart easy to revise
 * Revise reporting structure, position type, and location of shapes
 * Compare two versions of the same organization chart and create a report of the changes
 * Store data in your organization chart and generate reports
 * REFERENCES



INTRODUCTION
This step-by-step article discusses methods that you can use to create flexible organization charts in Microsoft Office Visio 2003. This article contains information about how you can do the following:
 * Make your organization chart easy to revise.
 * Revise reporting structure, position type, and location of shapes.
 * Compare two versions of the same organization chart and create a report of the changes.
 * Store data in your organization chart and generate reports.

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Make your organization chart easy to revise
To make your organization chart easy to revise in the future, do one or both of the following:
 * Create your organization chart by using the Organization Chart solution. The Organization Chart solution is a set of specially-designed shapes, wizards, and other tools.

To open the Organization Chart template, on the File menu, point to New, point to Organization Chart, and then click Organization Chart.
 * Let the Organization Chart template automatically draw the connectors that establish the reporting relationships in your organization chart.

To automatically establish a reporting relationship, drag a shape from the Organization Chart Shapes stencil and drop it directly on top of the shape that represents the position it reports to.

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Revise reporting structure, position type, and location of shapes
To revise the reporting structure or position type of shapes in your organization chart, do one or more of the following:
 * To quickly create reporting relationships between one supervisor and several subordinates, drag either the Multiple shapes shape or the Three Positions shape on top of the supervisor shape.
 * To convert the position type of one shape to a different position type, right-click the shape, click Change Position Type, click the position type that you want, and then click OK.
 * To assign a position (and its subordinates) to a new supervisor, drag the shape that represents the subordinate position on top of the shape that represents the supervisor position that you want the subordinate position to report to.
 * To move a position and keep the same reporting structure, select the shape that represents the position. Point to Move Subordinates on the Organization Chart menu, and then click either Left/Up or Right/Down.
 * To change the layout of positions in a reporting structure, right-click the shape that represents the top level of the reporting structure, and then click Arrange Subordinates. Click the layout style that you want, and then click OK.

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Compare two versions of the same organization chart and create a report of the changes
You can compare two different versions of the same organization chart, and then generate a report of the differences between the older version and the newer version. You can use the information in the report to update information in an older version of an organization chart. To compare two different versions of the same organization chart, follow these steps:
 * 1) Open either the newer version or the older version of the organization chart.
 * 2) On the Organization Chart menu, click Compare Organization Data.
 * 3) In the Drawing to compare it with box, click Browse, locate the version of the organization chart that you want to compare, and then click Open.
 * 4) Under Compare type, do one of the following, depending on your situation:
 * 5) * Click My drawing is older. Show a report of the changes made to the other drawing.
 * 6) * Click My drawing is newer. Show a report of the changes I've made to my drawing.
 * 7) Under Report type, specify the option that you want.
 * 8) Click OK.

The following are examples of situations when you may want to compare two versions of an organization chart:
 * You have two versions of a departmental organization chart where one version is for distribution and the other version is for your private use. The version that you keep for your private use contains 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 manually update the structural changes without affecting the confidential data.
 * You updated a departmental organization chart to reflect recent staffing changes. The updated departmental organization chart contains new information and is not synchronized with the overall organization chart for your company. By comparing the departmental chart with the overall organization chart for your company, you can generate a report of the differences and submit the report to your human resources department so that the organization chart for your whole company can be updated.
 * 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 that represents the new organization, you can more easily update the formatted chart without losing any formatting.

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Store data in your organization chart and generate reports
You can add data such as e-mail addresses and phone numbers to shapes in your organization chart. To do so, follow these steps:
 * 1) In your organization chart, right-click the shape that you want to add data to, and then click Properties.
 * 2) In the Custom Properties dialog box, type the data that you want to add, and then click OK.

Note that you can also create custom property fields for data that you want to add to shapes in your organization chart. The following are two examples of situations where you may want to store data in shapes in your organization chart:
 * You want the chart to serve as a public data source and also to represent organizational structure. For example, if you store employee phone numbers and e-mail addresses in organization chart 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. For example, you want to store phone numbers, dates of hire, salaries, and grade levels in your organization chart, and then generate a report from the organization chart. You can save the report as a Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet, an HTML file, an XML file, or as an Excel spreadsheet that is embedded in a shape in your drawing.

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