The Guide to Organizational Charts in Office 365

V1 March 2019

John Doe

CIO

Information Technology

The Guide to

Organizational

Charts in

Ofce 365

Introduction to organizational charts .................................................................................................................................................................. 2

The value of organizational charts ........................................................................................................................................................................ 5

The challenges of organizational charts.............................................................................................................................................................. 8

What to expect out-of-the-box in O365 ...........................................................................................................................................................10

Dedicated org chart solutions ..............................................................................................................................................................................16

Org charts with Hypersh .....................................................................................................................................................................................18

Contents

The internal structure of an organization is as vital as

the external structure of its walls. Understanding the

structure of your organization is essential for understanding

hierarchies, who to report to in specic situations and who

has responsibility for various projects or pieces of work.

Organizational charts are hierarchical diagrams that can

provide reference points for managerial authority, as well

as anchor points for fundamental human resource (HR) and

administrative practices. An organizational chart (or org

Introduction to organizational charts

Why do we need organizational charts?

Without the structure that organizational charts provide, it is more

difcult for businesses to dene internal processes and streamline

communications as work moves throughout the business. Linked

to the efciency by which workers can connect with one another

and the information they hold, organizational charts can be directly

attributed to a business’ productivity—specically for administrators,

whose job it is to collect employee prole information.

chart) should stretch across the business in its entirety. It is

tting, then, that the number of people that can benet from

org charts is equally as broad.

Org charts are primarily designed to show the roles and

relationships of employees at a glance. But the information

used for this can also offer a better understanding of how

the organization is designed and where each individual,

department, and business unit ts into the ‘big picture’.

As the hub for an organization’s employees, information

and work tools, org charts are a perfect t for Ofce

365. Currently the most popular enterprise productivity

platform on the market

, Ofce 365 is a prime source

for extracting the information that goes into org charts.

There are various methods of doing so: from extrapolating

information contained in Excel spreadsheets or PowerPoint

presentations to using articial intelligence-driven and even

automated solutions.

In Ofce 365, there are several methods for viewing and

creating a organizational chart:

• Ofce 365 Contact Cards—in Outlook, SharePoint,

OneDrive, Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams,

selecting the “Organization” tab on an employee’s Contact

Card will display their place in the organization (providing

that information has been added to Active Directory).

• Delve—has a very simple, linear organizational chart that

comes out of the box.

• PowerApps—PowerApps has a template app for

employee search on mobile devices.

• Microsoft Ofce Suite (Microsoft Visio, Word and

PowerPoint—a Microsoft product suite that as part

of its vast feature set allows you to create exible

organizational charts manually using chart templates and

or shapes.

Given the breadth of Microsoft applications, administrators

can take their pick depending on the needs of their company.

However, with so many options, you will need to be aware of

the limitations in all of them.

This whitepaper will explore the different ways Ofce 365

administrators can create and manage organizational charts

in Ofce 365 to help businesses and employees get the most

from them.

This is your comprehensive guide to organizational charts in

Ofce 365.

McAfee. 2016. Ofce 365 Adoption Rate, Stats, and Usage. Online source:

https://www.skyhighnetworks.com/cloud-security-blog/7-charts-reveal-the-meteoric-rise-of-ofce-365/

Marc Anderson

Microsoft MVP for Ofce Apps & Services

Co-Founder and President

of Sympraxis Consulting

“Collaboration and innovation happen

because people work together in

productive and effective ways to reach

more valuable results. Any technology

we use to foster those processes must-by

its very nature—bring people together in

the rst place. To work effectively with

others in our organizations, we need to

know a bit about them: where they sit

in the organization, who they work for,

what their skills are, even what they look

like. Every organization we work with

needs some sort of organizational chart

and employee directory for this to work.”

The key selling point of Ofce 365 is its ability to provide an

individual with everything they need to get work done—the

people, applications, and information they interact with each

day. With this information readily available, any business in

Ofce 365 should make use of organizational charts. Key

benets include:

• Streamlined collaboration: help workers nd relevant

colleagues quickly and easily when they need to.

• Information access: reduce the likelihood of accidentally

sharing information with someone who doesn’t have

permission to view them.

• Free up time: with automation, reduce the manual

administrative work required to keep organizational

charts updated as companies grow.

The nal benet in the list above is crucial for Ofce 365

administrators. Based in the cloud, Ofce 365 is a platform

The value of organizational charts

that is constantly updating and evolving. This is a selling

point for many cloud-based platforms. However, updating

employee information so organizational charts are always

up-to-date ultimately rests on the shoulders of the platform

administrator. User information that is vital for org charts—

for example, employee names, roles, contact details,

reporting lines etc.—must be manually updated for accuracy.

It is the platform administrator’s job to make sure employees

do this, which is easier said than done.

Microsoft provides Ofce 365 administrators with a wealth

of employee information through Azure Active Directory

and the Ofce Graph. But they need to know how to capture

and manage that data if they want to take advantage of it.

Organizational charts for admins

Up to date prole information is integral to an engaging user

experience. Org charts should empower employees to take control

of their prole data, essentially crowdsourcing the upkeep of

prole information. This removes the burden from Ofce 365

administrators, without neglecting the focus on control, privacy, and

information governance.

Vadim Tabakman

Manager Technical Evangelism

Americas at Nintex

“Digital Transformation is resulting in

businesses wanting to automate as

much as possible, and reduce paper

based processes. Almost all of these

processes require human interaction.

In order to achieve this, it’s necessary

to build workows that can easily nd

the people required to respond to tasks.

Having workows being able to traverse

up and down a complete and constantly

updated Organization Chart, means

your workow doesn’t have to change

when people move positions.”

Organizations that choose not to use org charts face explicit

and implicit problems. An employee asking who should

approve a contract is an obvious problem. But issues like

poor communication or even conict between departments

and employees can go under the radar, only becoming

apparent when something goes seriously wrong.

There are also explicit and implicit problems for

administrators working with organizational charts,

specically around creating, deploying and maintaining

them. Platform administrators need to be aware of these

challenges so they can look to resolve them.

• Underdeveloped org charts: If the information is no more

than an employee’s name and job role, organizational

charts are going to perform the most basic of functions.

Administrators that may have already implemented an

org chart should look to add information to provide more

value to employees.

• Administrative burden: Traditionally, any prole

information that needs to be added, removed, or changed

would create manual work for an administrator. This

process is of course time consuming and tedious, making

it more susceptible to human error.

• Lack of time: Ofce 365 administrators are busy enough

without chasing employees to update their prole

information. The prospect of contacting employees,

waiting for their response, and updating proles with new

information is not a particularly appealing task. But it is

one that needs to be done routinely.

• Inconsistent and/or inaccurate employee data: Like any

task that is overly or unnecessarily difcult to complete,

it’s likely that attention-to-detail slips and complacency

creeps in. In a worst-case scenario, the task is ignored

altogether. As a result, employee information will

become inconsistent and inaccurate over time. This can

snowball, creating more work to x the problem meaning

administrators are less keen—and therefore less likely—to

do so.

Depending on the solution you use to create organizational

charts; these challenges are more or less frequent, and

harder or easier to resolve. The following section details the

different methods available to Ofce 365 administrators for

creating organizational charts in Ofce 365.

The challenges of organizational charts

Loryan Strant

Microsoft MVP for Ofce 365

Founder of Strant Consulting

“Despite living in an ever-connected

social world in our personal and

business lives, employees within

organisations often struggle to nd

and connect with others due to

stale, manual, or just non-existent

organisational charts.”

Ofce 365 Contact Cards

In Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive and Microsoft Teams,

clicking on an employee’s name will show their Contact Card.

The Contact Card includes details about the individual,

including contact information, a bio, and email.

Selecting the “Organization” shows a pre-formatted

organizational chart. This is restricted to showing a

maximum of four hierarchical levels per employee. As you

click on other people, the organization view refreshes to the

context of that person. This makes for speedy discovery up

and down the “food chain” but prevents you from seeing a

larger organizational structure.

What to expect out-of-the-box in O365

There are several ways you can use organizational charts in Ofce 365:

Delve

Delve can be launched from the Ofce 365 App Launcher and is more document

centric than people centric.

Any person you click on within Delve takes you to their Delve prole page. This

has a very simple linear organization chart, that shows the management chain

but not peers. In order to show the Org chart in Delve, you need to assign the

Manager for users in Azure AD or SharePoint online user proles directly.

Microsoft Teams

Using Ofce 365 contact Cards, the

“Organization” tab shows the linear

hierarchy of the person the chart

is centered around. This tab can be

turned off by administrators using

‘Group Policy’.

Microsoft Teams allows bots to be

installed from the store (Which can

also be restricted by administrators).

Microsoft have created a bot

“WhoBot”. This bot allows employees

to search for people in your

organization by name or by topic

within the Team chat experience.

Microsoft. 2018. New ways to use apps and get more done in Microsoft Teams. Online source:

https://blogs.ofce.com/en-us/2018/01/29/new-ways-to-use-apps-and-get-more-done-in-microsoft-teams/

Stephanie Donahue

Microsoft MVP for Ofce Apps & Services

President & Co-founder of PAIT Group

“Organizational chart functionality is

always one of the rst topics to surface

when planning an intranet. Initially,

there is excitement when we talk about

the Who bot and the Organization

View tab in Teams, but most customers

still feel they are left short with only a

partial view of the organization, as it

relates to a single employee.”

Visio is software for creating diagrams and owcharts,

making it the only dedicated Microsoft solution for

organizational charts. You can create simple org charts,

or integrate data from Excel spreadsheets, databases, or

Exchange directory to make more complex diagrams.

Visio is certainly the more capable solution for creating

organizational charts. However, it does not come as part

of your Ofce 365 subscription and must be purchased

separately. Visio also lacks some of the more sophisticated

org chart capabilities such as automation.

Microsoft. 2018—Build an org chart in Visio. Online source:

https://support.ofce.com/en-us/article/build-an-org-chart-in-visio-24edb0c1-49c7-409f-8be2-263a44b0c797

Microsoft Ofce Suite—Visio Professional (2016/2019)

Microsoft Ofce Suite—Word and PowerPoint

Making organizational charts in Microsoft Word and

Microsoft PowerPoint requires the user to use a library

of shapes and connectors to build out the structure of the

chart and to manually add the prole information. Whilst not

optimal in many ways, it is a common way for org charts to be

created.

Dedicated org chart solutions

Ofce 365 administrators are not short on choices when

it comes to creating org charts. However, the variety of

available applications is also a negative. The apps Microsoft

provide are not specically designed to create org charts,

and so are missing some of the features and functionality

that can make the process easier for administrators. And the

one application that does is not included in your Ofce 365

subscription.

Dedicated software for organizational charts can use

articial intelligence, automation, and bot technology

to make collecting and managing prole information far

easier for administrators. By investing a little more into the

software behind org charts, you can get far more value while

doing less work.

Dedicated org charts solutions provide:

• Visibility: use a centralized source for nding out

information on colleagues old and new, their role, where

they work, their interests, etc.

• Consistency: let employees ll in information via pre-

populated drop-down menus to standardize data entry.

• Governance: ensure consistency and compliance as

your organization grows with ongoing monitoring and

approval tasks.

• Integration: ensure that information is consistent across

all Ofce 365 applications, and other line of business

systems.

• Customizable: can be congured to show different parts

of your organization.

• Specicity: congure which departments approve which

information in an employee prole. For example: ofce

managers for employee information, HR for job titles

Julie Turner

Microsoft MVP—Ofce Apps & Services

Partner at Sympraxis Consulting

“Anything you can do to nurture and

develop your internal community

can only benet your organization’s

overall health. Therefore, the org chart,

which gives employees the ability

to get accurate information on their

coworkers with a visual way for people

to identify each other, is a cornerstone

to enabling a harmonious and high-

performing community.”

Features aside, organizational charts are ultimately only as

good as the data you feed them with. Each of the solutions

require employee names, job titles, department names, and

contact information for the discovery of employees to work.

Without this, you will not be able to discover people.

The best solutions for org charts include the technology

to help you capture and maintain employee information in

Ofce 365. Hypersh monitors your directory to identify

information that is missing or invalid, notifying users via

email or IM chat of the disparity. This is done automatically,

meaning the only action an employee needs to take is

answering a simple question. And they are informed of this

on whichever device they are working on—desktop, web,

or mobile.

This frees up considerable time for Ofce 365

administrators. Hypersh can also set reminders so if users

don’t update information the rst time they are asked, the

onus isn’t on you to chase them.

Hypersh uses articial intelligence to reduce the org chart

process into ve simple steps:

1. Capture: Automate the collection of employee

information. Hypersh identies what information is

present and correct, and likewise what is missing and

incorrect, by monitoring an organization’s directory.

2. Validate: Establish ongoing accuracy of information.

Hypersh uses prole validation to ensure that employee

information is consistently accurate. Users are informed

when their prole information needs to be updated by

email or IM chat, and they are directed to the right place

to quickly update their information.

3. Onboard: Hypersh makes sure all new employees

are immediately included and their information is

automatically added to the organizational chart.

4. Update: Organizations have the ability to block images

that don’t meet the requirements—prole pictures that

are too dark, obstruct the face, include multiple people,

etc.—and also images that are inappropriate or not safe

for work.

5. Access: Make your org chart easy to access and open

to all. The best way to do this is to include it as a feature

on your organization’s intranet. This way all of your

employees can access it whenever they log in.

Org charts with Hypersh

Hypersh has a range of other features to make

organizational charts easier to create and manage. Features

include:

• Hyperbot communicates with users through email

or Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams to notify

them when their prole information needs updating.

Administrators can choose the personality of Hyperbot

to determine the tone of interactions with users, and

how frequently it contacts them to collect or conrm

information.

• Organizations often have prole information stored in

other systems of record and want this information across

all their Ofce experiences. Scheduled Import pulls prole

information from systems via a le export and imports it

into other integrated prole information systems.

• Reporting provides insight into how populated employee

prole information is across the organization, shown in

visual, comprehensible graphs.

• Directory Scoping allows you to choose which users

across the organization will be included in the analysis

and collection of prole information.

• As well as Ofce 365 environments, Hypersh supports

hybrid instances of Active Directory and SharePoint user

proles.

Ofce 365 administrators have a wealth of options

for organizational charts. But Hypersh is the only

comprehensive solution that provides everything you need

to manage prole information for a fraction of the time it

would usually take.

Get started today with a free trial of Hypersh and start collecting

and managing information to create and maintain organizational

charts in Ofce 365.

Mark Rackley

Microsoft MVP for Ofce 365

Chief Strategy Ofcer & Partner of PAIT Group

“Org charts are at the top of every

intranet’s ‘needs’ and ‘must haves’ but

most solutions out there are maintained

in separate databases, quickly out

of date, or simply don’t perform well.

Having an org chart governed by Azure

AD is just a no-brainer and presents

quick wins with a lot of value for most

organizations... assuming you keep your

AD clean with Hypersh.”

Hypersh helps bring your company

and employee directory to life

by ensuring directory and prole

information is always complete and

up-to-date. Hypersh improves IT

Service Delivery, increases employee

engagement, and helps unlock the

value of your technology investments.

Hypersh uses AI and Bot technology

to automate the collection of prole

information. The secure service

supports on-premises, hybrid, and

online environments.

You can experience Hypersh for free

with Hypersh Lite to automatically

collect and manage prole photos in

Ofce 365.

www.hypersh.com/try

About Hypersh