The sample uses Visio’s Organization Chart template and features to take advantage of its sophisticated data association and layout automation.  A similar chart may be created with Visio’s Flowchart Shapes, but Organization Chart provides additional helpful features.

Contents of the Template

This sample template opens the following standard Visio stencils:

·          Organization Chart Shapes

·          Backgrounds

·          Borders and Titles

This sample contains the following pages:

·          Pages 1-5: Each of these pages is named for the portion of the project life cycle that it represents.

Template Features

This template was built using the Import Organization Data function. Here is an overview of the steps that were required to create the work breakdown structure.

1.     Task data that existed in a Microsoft Office Project file was copied/ pasted into an Excel spreadsheet. If you do not have Microsoft Office Project, the data can be typed directly into an Excel spreadsheet. The field that were used were:

o    WBS#

o    Description

o    Duration

o    Start Date

o    End Date

2.     Once in Excel, a column was added to define the relationship between a summary task and its subtasks. This column was named “Reports to”. For example, WBS# 2.1.1 reports to WBS# 2.1.

3.     After defining all of the WBS relationships, the Organizational Chart Wizard was run, and the data was imported into Visio.

4.     After a little re-arranging of shapes to get them into the right order, the result is a multi-page work breakdown structure, each containing the correct subordinate relationships, and the correct data, stored in each shape as custom properties.

For more information on importing data using the Organizational Chart Wizard, and viewing custom properties, refer to Visio Help.