If a direct report is selected when adding a shape, the new shape will also be a direct report to the same position.

In this step-by-step tutorial, youll learn to easily create and change an org chart in Excel in a few minutes.

The first modern org chart was created by engineer Daniel McCallum and artist George Holt Henshaw to show the company organization of the New York and Erie railroad by each location.

The term gained popularity in the first part of the 20th century, peaked in use in the 1960s, and continues to be in regular use today.

Org charts are useful in many ways: New employees can learn the structure of departments, managers can explain their function and the function of their employees within the organization, or people can evaluate the functions of various positions before and after the department restructures.

Beyond the obvious use of visualizing reporting structure, org charts are a handy tool to use in many situations, including the following: To evaluate functions of the employees in a particular department or division To plan cross-department projects To plan and evaluate restructuring efforts To track employees and managers workloads to determine who has too much or not enough work Org charts are also useful tools to map many groups beyond departments and large corporations, like members of the PTA or a family tree.

However, there are times when an organization chart isnt helpful, such as when looking at budgets, tracking informal communication channels, or mapping out the complexity of daily operations.

Additionally, for organizations that employ a lot of temporary or contract employees or have a high turnover rate, maintaining an org chart can be a pain.

In these cases, an employee list may be a simpler way to keep track.

You can also use the SmartArt feature in PowerPoint and Outlook to create an org chart, or use other programs, such as Visio (which is also a Microsoft product, though not part of the Office family), LucidChart, OrgPlus, OrgWeaver, Pingboard, and OrgChart4U, among others.

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If you dont want to create a chart from scratch, expedite things by using these free organizational chart templates.

In Excel 2010, 2013, and 2016 for Windows and Excel 2016 for Mac, as well as the Office 365 version, you can find SmartArt by clicking the Insert Tab, and then on the Illustrations group.

Follow the steps below to create an organization chart in Excel.

Note: All screenshots in this article are from Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011.

Open a blank worksheet in Excel and click the Insert tab (or choose Insert from the drop-down menu).

Click that rectangle (you may need to move or hide the text pane) and type the name of that person.

Hit return (or shiftreturn) to create a new line to enter a title or any other information.

The next row of rectangles are for people reporting to the leader of the organization, such as vice presidents reporting to a president.

The text pane is the easiest way to add or delete new shapes, as well as move shapes up or down levels.

The text pane will appear when you click a rectangle on the org chart.

If the changes need to apply to all the shapes in the chart (such as the background color or the shape itself) or all text (such as font or color), use the Select All command from the edit menu before making the change.

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Here are some things you can change in an organizational chart using SmartArt tools: Add a Position (Shape): Select a shape (the default shape is a rectangle) and click the plus button on the text pane.

A couple things to be aware of: If no shape is selected, the new shape will not be connected to the other shapes, and will appear on the same level as the top shape in the chart.

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