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Special Considerations for Organization Charts

As I said before, org charts are different from other diagrams because of their complexity. The relationships between the shapes are of a different nature than in other types: one box is subordinate to another box in a complex hierarchy.

Organization charts have their own toolbar, which is separate from the Diagram toolbar (although similar to it). Notice that it doesn't have Move Shape Forward, Move Shape Backward, or Change To buttons, and that the Insert Shape button has a drop-down list that it didn't have with other diagram types. Figure 10-17 shows the toolbar and I'll explain its buttons in the following sections.

Figure 10-17: The Organization Chart toolbar.

Inserting and Deleting Shapes

The main difference between an organization chart and other diagrams in inserting a shape is that each added shape must be in relation to another shape.

There are three kinds of relationships that the new shape can have to the existing selected one:

Subordinate: Reports directly to that person

Coworker: Is at the same level as that person, and reports to the same manager

Assistant: Provides services to that person; may or may not directly report to him or her.

To get a new shape with the default subordinate relationship, you simply click the Insert Shape button, but to get a new shape with one of the other two relationships, you must open the drop-down list on the Insert Shape button and make your selection there (see Figure 10-18).

Figure 10-18: The Organization Chart toolbar.

To delete a shape, select it and press the Delete key, as with any other diagram type.

Changing Supervisor Reporting

As the organization changes, you might need to change the chart so that people report to different supervisors. To do that, simply drag-and-drop a subordinate's box onto a different supervisor's box.

Switching to a Different Subordinate Layout

The subordinates for a supervisor can be arranged in any of several ways on the organization chart. The default is for each one to be shown horizontally beneath the supervisor, as shown in Figure 10-19.

Figure 10-19: This is the standard layout for a branch of an organization chart.

In a large or complex organization chart, however, the diagram can quickly become too wide. Therefore, there are several "hanging" alternatives that make the chart more vertically oriented. The alternatives are Both Hanging, Left Hanging, and Right Hanging. They are just what their names sound like. Figure 10-20 shows examples of Right Hanging (the people reporting to the CEO) and Both Hanging (the Public Relations subordinates).

Figure 10-20: Hanging layouts make the chart more vertically oriented.

You can choose layouts for individual branches of the chart. Before selecting an alternative layout, you must click the supervisor box whose subordinates you want to change. Then on the Organization Chart toolbar, click the Layout button and choose one of the layouts from the menu (see Figure 10-21).

Figure 10-21: Choose the desired layout for the selected supervisor box.

Selecting Multiple Shapes of a Common Type

When working with organization charts, it is often helpful to select all the boxes in a certain branch, or all the boxes at a certain level, before applying formatting.

For example, you might want to change the font color for all the boxes at a certain managerial level, or you might want to select all the connecting lines in the diagram so you can make them thicker or thinner.

The Organization Chart toolbar provides an easy way to make the selection. Select a box that belongs in the group you want to select. For example, to select all the managers of a certain level, select one such manager. Then click the Select button on the Organization Chart toolbar, opening a menu, and choose one of the following:

Level: Selects all the boxes at the same level as the currently selected one.

Branch: Selects all boxes in the same branch as this one.

All Assistants: Selects all boxes with the Assistant type regardless of position.

All Connecting Lines: Selects all connecting lines regardless of position.

Fitting Text

When you type more text into a box in an org chart than will fit, it hangs over the edges. Click the Fit Text button on the Organization Chart text box to automatically resize all text in the chart so that it does not overflow anymore. It makes all the text the same size on the whole chart, so it evaluates the needed size so that the largest amount of text will still fit.

Making Manual Layout Changes

You can turn off AutoLayout from the Layout button's menu on the Organization Chart toolbar, and once it's off you are free to drag the boxes and lines around. This enables you to change the positioning of individual boxes, and even to switch the chart to a left-to-right layout rather than a top-down one.

The connecting lines between boxes become somewhat twisted up if you start moving the boxes around dramatically. These are not just normal lines-they are a special class of AutoShape line called a connector. (You can choose connectors from the AutoShapes menu on the Drawing toolbar anytime, not just within an organization chart.) Notice when one is selected, there are little red balls on each end. The red indicates that the lines are successfully connected to boxes on both ends. If you drag a line so that it no longer connects at each end, that end's ball will turn green to warn you (see Figure 10-22).

Figure 10-22: Connector lines show red when connected and green when disconnected.

As you move lines and boxes around, you might decide that a line should connect to a particular box on a different side of it than the default, to avoid having the line wrap around the box. To make that happen, do the following:

Click the line to select it.

Point the mouse pointer at the red circle to change, and hold down the left mouse button. The mouse pointer becomes a cross, and small blue markers appear on all four sides of the box, indicating the valid docking points.

Drag the red circle to one of the other docking points. When it is over a valid docking point, the mouse pointer will change to a square inside a crosshair, as shown in Figure 10-23.

Release the mouse button.

Figure 10-23: Changing the docking point of a connector line to a box.

Making Manual Formatting Changes

AutoFormat is turned on by default for the organization chart, just like with other diagram types. Right-click and choose Use AutoFormat to toggle it off. AutoFormat must be off in order to make manual formatting changes, and AutoLayout must be off in order to move boxes around.

When AutoFormat is off, you can format any shape on the org chart in any of the normal ways that you can format an AutoShape:

Select a box and use the Fill Color, Line Color, and/or Text Color buttons on the Drawing toolbar to change any of those colors.

Change the thickness of the shape border with the Line Style button on the Drawing toolbar.

Make the shape border or any of the connector lines dotted or dashed with the Dash Style button on the Drawing toolbar.

Right-click the box and choose Format AutoShape to make those same changes in the Format AutoShape dialog box instead, if you prefer.

Apply a shadow or 3-D effect to the shape with the Shadow or 3-D buttons on the Drawing toolbar.

Figure 10-24 shows an example of some manual formatting applied to an organization chart.

Figure 10-24: This organization chart has been manually formatted.