Automatic Page Breaks and Sort Order in Org Charts

I'm generating some org charts using data in Excel. Each time a chart is
drawn, the items on a given page appear in a different order. I would like
to be able to sort them by name or a given numeric index.

Also, I've been making changes to the Excel files and creating the org
charts from scratch again. I used to get 1 layer of subordinate per page,
but now something has changed and I get up to 3 layers of subordinates per
page. How can I change this without specifying manual page breaks?

I assume that you are using the Organization Chart Wizard to generate the
Visio drawing.

There is no way to specify the order of the subordinate shapes using the
wizard. The wizard simply drops a shape for each subordinate, connects it to
its parent, then "auto arranges" the shapes after all of them have been
dropped.

Left to it's own devices, the wizard makes some arbitrary decisions as to
how many levels it will show on a page. If you want a specific number of
levels per page you will have to specify it yourself in the wizard.

Hope this helps.

--
Mike Mueller
Longhorn SDK

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Ron" wrote in message
...
I'm generating some org charts using data in Excel. Each time a chart is
drawn, the items on a given page appear in a different order. I would
like
to be able to sort them by name or a given numeric index.

Also, I've been making changes to the Excel files and creating the org
charts from scratch again. I used to get 1 layer of subordinate per page,
but now something has changed and I get up to 3 layers of subordinates per
page. How can I change this without specifying manual page breaks?

Thanks for your reply!

Yes, I'm using the Org Chart Wizard to generate the drawing.

It seems to me that the user interface should include a way to control shape
position (sort order) on the page and the number of subordinate levels. This
seems like a SERIOUS oversight in design of the program. Any "arbitrary
decisions" need to have manual controls. Maybe this should be considered for
future upgrades.

Thanks for your help!
Ron

"Mike Mueller [MSFT]" wrote:

I assume that you are using the Organization Chart Wizard to generate the
Visio drawing.

There is no way to specify the order of the subordinate shapes using the
wizard. The wizard simply drops a shape for each subordinate, connects it to
its parent, then "auto arranges" the shapes after all of them have been
dropped.

Left to it's own devices, the wizard makes some arbitrary decisions as to
how many levels it will show on a page. If you want a specific number of
levels per page you will have to specify it yourself in the wizard.

Hope this helps.

--
Mike Mueller
Longhorn SDK

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Ron" wrote in message
...
I'm generating some org charts using data in Excel. Each time a chart is
drawn, the items on a given page appear in a different order. I would
like
to be able to sort them by name or a given numeric index.

Also, I've been making changes to the Excel files and creating the org
charts from scratch again. I used to get 1 layer of subordinate per page,
but now something has changed and I get up to 3 layers of subordinates per
page. How can I change this without specifying manual page breaks?