Build and save your organization chart

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Open People & roles, then Organization chart. The chart shows the business's people and their reporting connections. You can arrange cards visually or use the form controls to create connections without dragging. Save the chart explicitly when your edits are ready.

1. Find the manager and direct report you want to connect.
2. Connect the manager to the report using handles or the form fields.
3. Review the direction and remove any mistaken connection.
4. Arrange the people on the canvas.
5. Choose Save chart to store the result.

The public workspace is coming soon. The organization planning guide explains how to decide which relationships to represent.

Find business members on the chart

The chart contains the business's member cards, including people marked inactive. Check that you are viewing the intended business before interpreting a person's position or adding a connection. A person belonging to another business may have a different reporting relationship there.

Inactive labeling describes membership state. It does not automatically decide how the business wants to document an old reporting connection. Review those relationships when a person leaves or changes responsibilities, and keep the chart aligned with the current structure your team needs to understand.

Connect a manager to a direct report

Drag from the manager card's bottom handle to the direct report's top handle. Check the resulting direction before continuing, particularly when cards sit close together. The connection should express who manages whom, not who happens to be positioned higher on the canvas.

Use consistent meaning for every connection. If one line means supervision and another means occasional advice, readers cannot reliably interpret the diagram. Put other kinds of working relationships in an appropriate description or department record instead of silently changing what the lines mean.

Add reporting connections with form controls

Select the Manager and Direct report fields to create the same relationship without dragging. This gives keyboard users a direct alternative and can be easier when several cards overlap or the chart is large.

Confirm both names before adding the connection. If the relationship is wrong, remove it and enter the correct direction rather than moving the cards to make the line look right. The app treats a reporting connection and a card position as different pieces of information.

Support more than one manager

A person can have multiple managers, and disconnected people are allowed. Use those options when they describe the business clearly. The app does not force everyone into a single tree or invent a top-level manager for an unconnected card.

Multiple connections can be useful, but the chart alone does not explain how two managers divide responsibility. Agree that distinction outside the diagram and use the surrounding people and department records where appropriate. A clear small chart is more useful than extra connections whose meaning no one can explain.

Correct invalid reporting relationships

The app rejects self-reporting, duplicate connections and cycles. A cycle occurs when following management connections eventually leads back to the same person. Review the existing path rather than repeatedly trying to add the same rejected line.

For an illustrative structure, if Alex manages Bailey and Bailey manages Casey, Casey cannot then manage Alex in the same reporting graph. Correct the mistaken relationship first. The restriction keeps the chart's direction coherent; it does not decide the organization's actual responsibilities for you.

Arrange people without changing connections

Move cards by dragging, or enter X and Y positions and use Move person. Position changes affect the layout, not the saved reporting meaning. Use Arrange by reporting lines when an automatic arrangement helps make the structure readable.

Leave enough space to distinguish names and connections. After arranging, inspect the chart and its reporting directory to confirm that no relationship was accidentally added or removed during the edit. The Microsoft organization-chart guide provides general background on readable hierarchy diagrams in another tool.

Read and remove chart connections

The readable reporting directory provides an alternative to interpreting lines on the canvas. Use it to review relationships and remove a connection without relying on a precise drag gesture. This is useful for keyboard navigation and for checking a dense section of the chart.

Removing a connection does not remove either person from the business. If someone changed manager, review whether the old connection should be removed and the new one added as part of the same chart edit. Save after confirming both changes.

Save a chart with concurrent edits

Choose Save chart explicitly after arranging cards or editing relationships. A visual change on the canvas is not a substitute for a successful save. Check the save outcome before closing the page or asking another person to review the new structure.

If another person has saved a newer chart, the app preserves your draft and reports the conflict instead of silently overwriting the newer version. Compare the intended changes with the current saved structure before retrying. Coordinate ownership of a large reorganization to reduce competing edits.

Keep chart structure separate from permissions

Team-management permission controls editing. Role-management access alone can allow viewing without granting chart-editing authority. Read People and roles for access setup; NIST's role-based access explanation gives background on permission roles.

Chart connections do not grant screen access, change message-sending rules or assign tasks. Those actions use their own controls. Organization-chart data is separate from operational JSON backups, so a stock-data export is not a chart backup. Review the backup guide when planning how to preserve business records.

Coming soon

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