Using Excel Data for creating an Organization Chart in Visio

You’ve painstakingly typed up all the organizational chart info in an Excel spreadsheet and your boss says he’d like it in Visio.  Groan – now I have got to retype it.  Stop!  No you don’t.  Visio allows you to important names and titles stored in list format into Visio.

Here’s how:

1.            Select File, New, Organization Chart

2.            Start the Organization Chart Wizard

3.            First step:  Select the 'Information that I enter using the wizard' option, and click Next

4.            Second step:  Select Excel, then type the name of the file

5.            Click on Browse to choose the location you wish to save the file to, click Save, and then click Next

6.            Click OK - a Microsoft Office Excel workbook will open with column headings already entered for you

7.            Replace the sample text with the text you wish to appear in your organization chart. By holding your cursor over each column heading, you should be able to view data entry tips

8.            Save the Excel file, then close

9.            Continue through the remaining steps in the wizard to create your organization chart from the data you entered into the Excel file

a.    Visio's organization chart wizard will recognise the following file formats (besides .xls):

b.    Microsoft Exchange Server Directory (Microsoft Exchange e-mail Address Book)

c.     Tab- or Comma-delimited text (.txt)

d.    Org Plus (.txt)

e.    Microsoft Office Access (.mdb) or any other file format for a database created in an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)-compliant database application.