Working with an Organization Chart

In many organizations, reporting relationships change frequently—because of promotions, special projects, changes in resource allocations, or unexpected events. Visio 2007 helps you keep your chart up to date by making it easy to find, arrange, update (and delete) employee information. For example, when an employee is promoted, you can change the shape used to represent that employee in the organization chart. Table 10-1 summarizes the ways you can work with employee shapes in an organization chart.

Table 10-1. Finding and Updating Organization Chart Information
TaskTechnique
Locate an employeeEnsure no shape is selected. Press Ctrl+F or choose Edit, Find. Type the name of the person or any other text string, select the search options you want, and then click Find Next.
Change the type of shape used for an employeeRight-click the shape, and then choose Change Position Type. Select the new position type, and then click OK.
Change the order in which an employee is displayed under a managerSelect an employee shape, and then click one of the Move buttons on the Organization Chart toolbar.
Change a reporting relationshipDrag an employee shape onto the new manager’s shape. Visio 2007 reconnects the affected shape.
Remove an employee and all shape data information stored with the employee shapeSelect the employee shape, and then press Delete. If the employee is a manager, all of the subordinates become disconnected. If the same employee appears on more than one page (that is, you’ve created synchronized copies), delete the shape from each page.
Adjust a group’s layout after a shape is moved or deletedSelect the top-level shape in the group, such as the manager. On the Organization Chart toolbar, click Horizontal Layout, Vertical Layout, or Side-By-Side Layout, and then click the style you want.
Adjust the spacing between selected shapes or all shapesChoose Organization Chart, Change Spacing. Select the options you want, and then click OK.

Troubleshooting: The automatic layout options have no effect on the organization chart

In theory, you should never have to drag shapes to position them in an organization chart. You can adjust the layout with an automated option from the Organization Chart toolbar. Yet when you add shapes to an organization chart, Visio 2007 doesn’t move shapes on the page out of the way. If groups overlap, you can select a manager shape, and then choose a layout option from the toolbar to rearrange the manager and subordinate shapes.

If you manually rearrange shapes, you can inadvertently break the automated layouts, which can cause the toolbar options and Organization Chart menu commands to have no effect or to work improperly. If you inherit an organization chart from someone else and the automated layout options don’t work, the last author might have inadvertently disabled the automated layout options by manually positioning shapes. When this happens, your only recourse is to adjust the spacing by dragging shapes into position.


Note

Your chart spacing might become uneven when you move shapes around. For a tidier chart, click the Re-Layout button on the Organization Chart toolbar.


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