How to Import Data for an Organization Chart Into Visio

Microsoft's Visio allows you to create advanced diagramming, including organizational charts. Data-driven visuals let you communicate complicated ideas clearly. Templates and wizards are included with the product that take data from existing sources, such as an Excel spreadsheet, and populate Visio charts. As data is changed, the chart is updated. The output can be published to SharePoint. Importing data for an organizational chart into Visio can be accomplished by connecting to the data and specifying elements.


Establish your data source. At the minimum, the Excel file or other source must include an employee name and the name of the employee's manager. The "Organization Chart Wizard" will look for the name and a "Report To" field that it uses to shape the diagram. You also can have other fields such as "Department," "Title" and so on. Create a file that contains these elements using Excel if you don't already have one.


Start Visio and select the "Organizational Chart Wizard." Choose the option titled "Information That's Already Stored in a File or Database." Click "Next." Choose the type of file you're importing on the next screen and click "Next" again.


Map the columns from your file to the "Name" and "Reports To" Visio-required minimum fields. The "Name" and "Reports To" labeled fields are compulsory and hard-coded in the wizard. Your Excel file may use different column headers, so choose which of your headers you want to map to these two compulsory fields. Specify more information to display by creating more in-depth mapping, such as mapping the Excel file's "Phone" field to the Visio chart's version. You can add, remove or create custom fields in the Visio chart in this dialog box, too.


Choose the layout options in the next dialog box. You can choose how much of an organization you want to show on one page, for example. Choose how you want the chart to look, such as the number of levels shown, whether it's all subordinates or just some of them. Click "Finish" to create your organizational chart.