Hierarchy & layout
This page covers the shape of the chart: how the tree is built, which direction it runs, how much of it is visible, how cards are grouped into swimlanes, and how cards and connectors are sized.
How the tree is built
The visual builds the hierarchy from Entity ID and Parent ID alone. There are no level fields and no fixed depth — the tree is as deep as your data.
Imperfect data doesn't break the chart. Cards whose parent is missing become top-level cards, self-references and circular chains are broken automatically, and multiple top-level cards are laid out side by side under an invisible shared root. The full set of rules is in Data fields → Parent ID.
The shared root is invisible and is never counted as a level: "3 levels" shows the same amount of hierarchy whether your data has one root or six.
Orientation
Use the rotate button in the top bar to switch between the two layouts:
| Orientation | Tree grows | Swimlanes are | Card stacking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top-Down | Downwards, children under their parent | Vertical columns | Available |
| Left-to-Right | Rightwards, children to the right of their parent | Horizontal rows | Not available |
The choice is saved with the report, so whatever an editor leaves it on is what viewers get. Viewers can flip it themselves, and bookmarks capture it.
Left-to-Right handles deep, narrow hierarchies (long reporting chains) more comfortably. Top-Down handles wide, shallow ones — especially with card stacking turned on.
Right-to-left layout
When Power BI runs in Arabic or Hebrew, the whole chart is mirrored:
- Top-Down — siblings and swimlane columns run from right to left.
- Left-to-Right — the tree grows leftwards from a root on the right, and swimlane titles sit on the right.
- The top bar, search, card content and landing page are mirrored too, and each card's expand/collapse toggle moves to the side its children are on.
- The arrow keys swap: ← expands the focused card and → collapses it, so the key pointing towards the children always expands. See Keyboard and accessibility.
A few elements deliberately keep their left-to-right order: sparklines (time still reads left to right), numbers in the KPI row, and the legend.
Format → Display → Direction controls this. Auto (the default) follows the Power BI language; Left to right and Right to left force a direction whatever the language — useful for an Arabic or Hebrew report edited in an English copy of Power BI.
Expanding and collapsing
Every card with children carries a toggle on its outer edge. The number on a collapsed toggle is how many children are hidden beneath it.
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Click the toggle | Expand or collapse that card's children |
| Shift+click the toggle | Expand or collapse the whole branch below it |
| → / ← with the card focused | Expand / collapse that card |
| Shift+→ / Shift+← | Expand / collapse the whole branch |
| Double-click a card (or Shift+Enter) | Focus on that branch — see below |
A single expand or collapse keeps the current zoom and pan and anchors the card you clicked, so the chart doesn't jump under you.
Focus on a branch
Double-clicking a card (or pressing Shift+Enter on it) collapses everything outside that card's branch and zooms to it — a fast way to isolate one division in a large chart. Return to the full view with Reset view in the levels menu.
The levels menu
The network button in the top bar opens a menu listing every level in your tree, plus All and Reset view.
- Selecting a number collapses the chart to exactly that many visible levels and re-fits it to the viewport.
- All expands everything.
- Reset view returns to the state defined by the Display settings below.
- The button shows the current level count, All, or – when the chart is in a mixed ("custom") state after manual toggling.
- The menu is disabled when the tree has fewer than two levels.
What people see on load
Format → Display
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Expand all on load | On · Off | Off |
| Expanded levels on load | 1 – 10 | 3 |
These two settings define the initial view and the target of Reset view. Expand all on load wins when it's on.
How this interacts with what viewers do:
- Expand/collapse actions are saved with the report, so a chart keeps its state between sessions and is captured by bookmarks.
- Changing either setting re-applies it for everyone on the next load. Leaving them alone preserves whatever people have expanded.
- If the data structure changes (different IDs), stale collapse state is discarded automatically.
Expanding a very large hierarchy renders every card at once. For trees of several thousand cards, leave Expand all on load off and let people drill in, or filter the data before it reaches the visual.
Stacking cards without children
Format → Display · Top-Down orientation only
A manager with 15 direct reports normally produces a 15-card-wide row. Stacking replaces that row with a compact indented column hanging beneath the parent.
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Stack cards without children | On · Off | On |
| Start stacking cards at | 1 – 100 | 3 |
Only childless cards (leaves) stack, and only when a parent has at least the threshold number of them. With swimlanes bound, leaves are counted and stacked per lane, so lanes stay separate.
Stacking only applies in Top-Down orientation. Switch to Left-to-Right and the setting is ignored.
Swimlanes
Bind a categorical column to Swimlane and the canvas is divided into labelled, alternately-shaded bands — one per value.
- Top-Down → lanes are vertical columns, titles at the top.
- Left-to-Right → lanes are horizontal rows, titles on the left (on the right in a right-to-left layout).
- Blank values land in a lane named Default.
- Cards are ordered by lane value within each level of the tree.
Format → Display → Swimlane Title Font Size sets the lane title size (8–36, default 12). The band shading is derived from the Background Color setting, and is replaced by the dark-mode or high-contrast palette when either is active.
Swimlanes work best when the lane field is independent of the hierarchy — region or function, say. If lanes mirror the reporting lines exactly, every lane holds a single branch and you gain nothing over the tree itself.
Card size and shape
Format → Card Configuration
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Auto Height | On · Off | On |
| Auto Width | On · Off | On |
| Width | 50 – 1000 px | 200 |
| Height | 30 – 500 px | 100 |
| Corner Radius | 0 – 50 px | 4 |
| Show Card URL Link | On · Off | On |
With Auto Height and Auto Width on, the card grows to fit what's on it — the number of Information Fields, whether images are shown, whether there's a KPI row and a sparkline, and how wide the longest value is. Turn them off to force every card to a fixed size.
Fixed sizes are useful when several org charts sit on one page and you want the cards to line up. Auto sizing is better for a single chart with varied content.
Connectors
Format → Link Configuration
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Stroke Width | 1 – 20 px | 2 |
| Curvature | Straight · Bezier | Straight |
| Color | Any colour | Light grey #CCCCCC |
| Show Link Arrows | On · Off | Off |
Straight draws elbow connectors (the classic org-chart look); Bezier draws smooth curves, which reads better on dense or crossing trees. Arrows are useful when the chart represents a flow (a process or a supply chain) rather than a reporting structure.
Link colour is overridden by dark mode and by high-contrast mode; the picker is hidden while dark mode is on.
Related
- Data fields — Entity ID, Parent ID and Swimlane in detail.
- Interactivity & navigation — search, zoom, focus and keyboard shortcuts.
- Formatting reference — every setting with its default.