Semi-Automatic Creation of an Org Chart in Visio 2010
In this article, we will learn how the semi-automatic creation of an organizational chart. We will be utilizing the Org Chart tab and the Organizational Chart Shapes in doing so. Org Chart Tab in the offers many tools that we can use to create organizational charts. There are group of commands in the Org Chart tab that will give us a time saving way of improving our organizational charts. We are going to create organizational charts manually, but with the help of the tools available in Visio 2010, this will somewhat make creating them in a semi-automatic way.
Creating an Organizational Chart
1. In an organizational chart, the president or CEO is usually at the top of the structure. Begin constructing your organizational chart by dragging Executive from the Organizational Chart Shapes and dropping it on to the page. Without clicking anything, you can right away type in the name of the president or CEO within the shape.
2. Next is to draw the vice presidents or senior managers below the president. To do this, select Manager from the Organizational Chart Shapes, drag it into the page and drop it directly onto the position’s superior shape. The Manager will be placed automatically under the Executive. You can put a couple more managers below the executive and Visio knows that it is another subordinate and uses its own built-in intelligence redraw the chart accordingly.
Fixing overlapping shapes in the Organizational Chart
Supposing you are placing more subordinates under several managers and then the shapes start to overlap, there is a very helpful tool that we can use to quickly fix this. This option is easier than manually adjusting the overlapping shapes yourself. To do this:
1. Go to Org Chart tab, in the Layout group you will find the Re-layout button.
2. By clicking on the Re-layout button, Visio will automatically fix the overlapping shapes for you.
Special masters or shapes
Among the Organizational Chart Shapes are the Consultant, Vacancy, and Assistant masters. These special masters or shapes have different borders compared to the Executive and Manager shapes which have double line borders. Notice when you place the Consultant shape on your chart, you will see that it has a dashed border; this denotes a consultancy role. As for the Vacancy shape, you will find that it has a dotted border which denotes a vacancy role. Lastly, for the Assistant shape, you will see that it has a single line border to denote an assistant role.
Visio 2010 has impressive and sophisticated tools that make use of its own built-in intelligence to construct an organizational chart. But the tools alone will not function by itself to create an org chart. We still have the control and these tools just us aid in making our work lighter and easier. Therefore, in creating organizational charts, a combination of both manual and automatic methods is important to achieve the most ideal organizational chart that we can produce.
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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!
