Getting started

This page walks you from an empty report to a working org chart. No prior experience with custom visuals is required.

1. Add the visual to Power BI

The Organizational Chart is distributed through Microsoft AppSource, the marketplace built into Power BI. You can view the listing here: ChartPad Organizational Chart on AppSource.

1. In Power BI Desktop (or the Power BI service), open the report you want to add the visual to.
2. In the Visualizations pane, select the ⋯ (Get more visuals) button.
3. Search for ChartPad Organizational Chart.
4. Select Add. The Org Chart icon appears at the bottom of your Visualizations pane.

tip

The Organizational Chart is a Microsoft-certified visual, so it shows a blue Certified badge in Power BI. When browsing "Get more visuals", you can turn on the Power BI Certified filter to find it (and other certified visuals) quickly.

note

Your organization may restrict AppSource. If you can't add visuals, ask your Power BI administrator to allow the ChartPad Organizational Chart, or to import it as an organizational visual.

Certified by Microsoft

The ChartPad Organizational Chart is a Microsoft-certified Power BI visual. Certification means Microsoft has reviewed and tested the visual's code and confirmed that it does not access any external services or resources — your data stays inside Power BI and never leaves your tenant.

For report authors, certification brings practical benefits:

• Safe for enterprise and regulated environments — because nothing is sent to outside services, the visual is suitable for organizations with strict data-governance requirements.
• Export to PowerPoint and PDF — reports using the Org Chart export correctly to PowerPoint and PDF.
• Email subscriptions — the visual renders in the images delivered when users subscribe to report pages.
• Easy to find — use the Power BI Certified filter in "Get more visuals" to locate it.

Certification is also why card images must be supplied as Base64 data rather than as web links — see Images on cards.

2. Place it on the canvas

Select the Org Chart icon in the Visualizations pane. An empty visual is added to your report canvas, showing a landing page that lists the fields you can add, and a Documentation button that opens this site.

The landing page has four tabs:

• Hierarchy — the two fields that build the tree: Entity ID (required) and Parent ID (recommended).
• KPI — KPI values, KPI Target, and KPI Period.
• Card content — Information Fields, Image (Base-64), Card URL, and Tooltips.
• Grouping — Swimlane and Accent Color.

3. Prepare your data

The Org Chart expects one row per card. At minimum you need an ID for each entity and the ID of its parent. Here is a small sample you can reproduce:

EmployeeID	ManagerID	Name	Title	Department
1	(blank)	Dana Reyes	CEO	Executive
2	1	Sam Okafor	VP Sales	Sales
3	1	Priya Nair	VP Engineering	Engineering
4	2	Léo Martin	Sales Manager, EMEA	Sales
5	2	Ana Silva	Sales Manager, AMER	Sales
6	3	Jo Kim	Engineering Manager	Engineering

Three rules matter:

• Entity ID must be unique. One row per card. (The exception is when you bind KPI Period — then it's one row per card per period. See Data fields.)
• Parent ID must contain values that exist in Entity ID. Leave it blank for top-level cards.
• Both columns should be the same type (both text or both whole number), so the IDs match.

tip

If your source has a single "manager name" column instead of IDs, that works too — just use the name column for both Entity ID and Parent ID, as long as the names are unique.

4. Assign the hierarchy fields

With the visual selected, drag your columns into these fields:

1. Entity ID ← EmployeeID
2. Parent ID ← ManagerID

The landing page disappears and the tree renders as soon as Entity ID is populated.

At this point every card is labelled with its raw ID, because nothing else is bound yet. Fix that in the next step.

5. Put content on the cards

Drag up to three columns into Information Fields. The first one becomes the card's bold title; the rest appear underneath it in order.

• Information Fields ← Name, then Title, then Department.

Then add whatever else your report needs:

Field	What you get
KPI values	A measure on every card, e.g. Revenue or Headcount.
KPI Target	A benchmark measure; cards switch to showing % of target.
KPI Period	A date or period column; every card gains a sparkline.
Image (Base-64)	A photo or logo on the card.
Card URL	A link icon that opens a profile or record.
Swimlane	Labelled lanes grouping the cards.
Accent Color	A coloured border per category.
Tooltips	Extra values shown on hover only.

See Data fields for the full detail on each one.

6. Set the view people land on

Format → Display

By default the chart opens with three levels expanded. Two settings control this:

Setting	Options	Default
Expand all on load	On · Off	Off
Expanded levels on load	1 – 10	3

Turn Expand all on load on for small trees; leave it off and set the level count for large ones. This is also the state the Reset view menu item returns to.

note

Whatever a viewer expands or collapses afterwards is remembered with the report, and captured by bookmarks. Changing either setting above re-applies it to everyone the next time the report loads. See Hierarchy & layout.

You're set

You now have a working org chart. From here:

• Shape the tree, orientation, swimlanes and card sizing → Hierarchy & layout
• Add targets, thresholds and sparklines → KPIs, targets & trends
• Add images, links, accent colours and dark mode → Card content & styling
• Search, zoom, cross-filter and keyboard shortcuts → Interactivity & navigation