Visio Organisation charts – linking pages

Welcome to part four of using the Visio organisation chart template.  In part three, we looked at further design options, including working with pictures within a shape and quickly copying part of a large diagram to a new page.   In the final part (I can hear you thinking “thank goodness!”), we will take a look creating links between pages, adding extra connectors and rounding up any other stray options.

Learn how to create and edit Visio organisation charts in this video backed up by the written steps below and in parts one, two, and three.

Linking pages

In part 3 of this long-running series 🙂  we looked at copying part of a diagram to another page.   Copying usually takes the form of copying a manager and subordinates to another page.  An obvious thing to do after this is to create a hyperlink from one page to another.  So here are the steps to create links between pages.

Select a shape, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 - selecting an object for a link

Click on the Link button on the Insert tab and the Hyperlinks dialog box will open.

Figure 2 - Hyperlinks dialog box

Use the Browse button, shown in Figure 2, opposite the Sub-address option and choose a linking page.

Figure 3 - linking page

To return to the Hyperlinks dialog click on OK, as shown in Figure 4. Enter a description and again click OK.

Figure 4 - Hyperlink description

When hovering over the linked shape, as shown in Figure 5, a Hyperlink symbol appears.  Hold down the [CTRL] key and the mouse pointer will change to a hyperlink hand.

Figure 5 - Hyperlink indicator

Adding additional connectors

A common situation is for an employee to report into more than one manager and how to represent this on the Visio organisation chart.  The temptation is to use the connector tool on the Home tab menu as you would do when creating more than one connection to shapes on a flowchart.   However, when adding additional connectors onto an organisation chart, use the “direct additional manager” connector as shown in Figures 6 and 7 or “dotted line report connector.”

Figure 6 – Direct additional manager

Figure 7 – Unconnected direct additional manager

Figure 8 – Connected direct additional manager

Saving a Visio drawing in PDF format

As Microsoft Visio doesn’t come as standard with Office installations people are often in a situation where they want to share a drawing with non-Visio users.   One solution, as shown in Figure 9, is to save the Visio drawing as a PDF.

Figure 9 - Export to a PDF

The Visio drawing, as shown in Figure 10, can be published and opened.

Figure 10 - Saving and publishing

Once published and hyperlinks, as shown in Figure 11, can be used to move through the drawing.

Figure 11 - Hyperlinked shape

This is the fourth installment of a series of posts on organisation chart creation in Microsoft Viso.  The other blog posts cover Building a Visio organisation chart, Design options for Org charts and Further design options.

To learn more about Microsoft Visio, give us a call on 020 8203 1774 and find out how we can help your organisation get better results.  If you are looking for more information on Microsoft Visio try the following blog Microsoft Visio blog.

Regards

Paul