Organogram — Guide

Getting started

• Drop any CSV or Excel (.xlsx) file onto the start screen — the file your payroll or HR system exports works as-is.
• If the file has no ID/TO columns, a small import step asks which column is the name, which is the manager, and (optionally) which is the employee number. Nothing is guessed: anyone whose manager can't be matched is listed by name in the Chart health panel.
• Paste from Excel: copy cells (with the header row), then Make ▾ Paste CSV (or the start-screen button), paste, Analyze.
• Or Make ▾ Build new to start one by hand. The Make menu (green) also imports files; the Export menu (blue) takes them out.
• Sign in with your email — no password. Type your address, click the link we send, and you're in; the same link creates your free account the first time.
• The welcome screen is never lost: right-click any empty canvas → Start screen… brings back the drop zone, the demo data and the template. Your chart stays exactly as it is behind it — "Back to your chart" (or Escape) returns you.
• Your chart is never silently replaced. Importing a file (or loading the demo) over a loaded chart always asks first — and on a signed-in account, a dated version of the old chart is saved automatically before the new one lands, so even a confirmed replace destroys nothing. Starting a fresh chart via New organogram… quietly saves that same automatic version.

Reading the chart

• Click a box — a card shows every detail plus level, direct reports and total positions in that branch.
• Prefer a preview while pointing? Switch Preview while pointing on from the person icon (top right) — hovering a box then shows a quick glance card. Clicking always works either way.
• Right-click a box — actions: show reporting line, focus on the branch, collapse/expand.
• The round badge under a box collapses or expands its team; collapsed teams show +N (people hidden below).
• Click a connector line — focus on everything below it. Restore brings the full tree back.
• Search highlights matches across all fields; press Enter to jump to the first one.
• The red ! (beside Restore) spotlights people with empty values among the fields switched on — complete cards dim, gaps glow red, the button counts them live, and it switches itself off with a ✓ when the last gap is filled. Tip: switch on only ROLE and the ! shows everyone missing a role.
• Big teams of people with nobody below them are shown as a compact grid instead of one endless row. Box height adjusts automatically so every switched-on field fits — all boxes stay the same height.
• Focus is persistent: focus on a branch (connector click or right-click → Focus) and every edit — detach, add, attach, move — keeps you in that branch until you press Restore. The reporting line view survives edits the same way. Searching for someone outside the view you're in brings the full chart back first, so Enter always lands on them.
• All floating cards are draggable — grab any empty area and park them where you work.
• Pan with the mouse, zoom with the wheel. Center refits the view.

Editing

• Click a person, then the pencil on their card — it becomes an editor, right where you are. The view never resets or re-centers while you edit. There is no Save button because there is nothing to remember to do: closing the editor saves — click anywhere, press Enter or Escape, move to another person — and undo covers mistakes.
• The editor's corners are its buttons, like a drawing frame, and their position IS their meaning: ↑ Add a manager above (top-left), ↓ Add a report below (bottom-left), → Add a person beside them with the same manager (bottom-right), Detach (orange, top-right). Building a row of teammates is just: type a name, →, type the next name. The top person has no → — nobody can stand beside the top. The violet Reports to panel changes who they report to — pick from the list, or hit Pick and click the new manager on the chart.
• Double-click a person on the chart — or any value on their card — to jump straight into editing that field.
• Add Above inserts between: the "New manager" takes this person's place and this person moves down one layer, reporting to them. On the top person it creates a new top.
• Right-click any person for: Edit, Add Above, Add Below, Add Beside, Swap with…, and Detach — a vacant post offers Fill from Detached… instead of Swap. Right-click empty canvas for: full tree, center, expand all, the Detached list, and a new organogram.
• Swap two people — right-click one of them → Swap with… → click the other, on the chart or in the Detached list (it opens by itself so everyone is one click away). The desks stay put: each person arrives at the other's desk with that desk's manager and team — the people move with everything on their card, so check job titles afterwards if titles belong to the desk. Swapping with the top person is how the top job changes hands. One Undo puts everyone back — including the view you were focused on.
• Detach, don't delete. On the chart you only ever detach — the person moves to Detached (the button next to the field chips), still in your dataset, ready to be attached again. Managers offer a choice: only them (their reports move up to their manager) or the whole branch. The top person asks who takes their place. All undoable.
• Detached holds detached people and import leftovers (duplicates, missing managers, extra top-levels). Attach (crosshair) → click their manager on the chart — build a tree like stacking bricks; the list reopens after each attach. Swap in for… on a Detached person's card puts them straight into someone's job — click who; that person moves to Detached, and anyone stored below the newcomer waits behind. Delete forever exists only here, behind a confirm.
• A detached branch remembers its shape. Detach a manager with their whole team and each person remembers who they reported to. What to look for: the branch head's row shows “+N below” instead of an ID — hover it and it says who's coming back with them. Attach the head and the entire branch returns in one act, reporting lines intact (numbers are quietly re-issued if they now clash).
• To dissolve a detached branch instead of restoring it whole: attach people individually, from the bottom of the list. Attaching a mid-branch person takes only them and their own remembered people — not the head above them. Deleting the head forever splits the memory: their people become independent (each shows their own “+N below” if they had a team). Once someone is attached, the memory is used up — their reporting line on the chart is the real one again.
• Detached people export in your CSV (TO = #detached:<manager ID> carries the branch memory; plain #detached means no memory) so branches survive export and re-import intact.
• Detached is a workbench: the ‹ FIELD › arrows cycle which field labels the list; ↕ sorts by it; the magnifier filters across all fields (and persists — filter "FINANCE" once and build the whole section); click a row for the person's full details card. Both the label field and the filter are remembered. Reach the list from its chip next to Fields, or by right-clicking the canvas.
• Detaching the top person asks who takes their place — the reports re-attach under the successor. Detaching a manager offers only-them (reports move up) or the whole branch.
• Change managers in the editor card — choose from the list, or press Pick and click the new manager on the chart. Illegal moves (under your own subordinate) are refused.
• The list icon next to fields like role and department shows that field's existing values with headcounts. Click a value to use it for this person (keeps spellings consistent — auditors notice), or hit its pencil to rename it for everyone at once ("FIN" → "FINANCE"). Renaming onto an existing value merges the groups. Undoable, like everything else.
• Undo/redo: Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y, or the Undo button on the confirmation toasts.
• Every change is saved automatically to your account — "Saved ✓" in the top bar. Close the tab, sign in tomorrow or on another machine, and your chart is simply there. No internet for a while? The chart is kept on your machine and syncs up the moment the connection returns.
• Rename the organogram by clicking its title in the top bar.
• The Fields button next to the field chips adds or removes whole columns (e.g. add LOCATION, drop SALARY) — for everyone at once, undoable.
• Double-click a field's name to rename it — fix an import typo, or put right a source file that had roles under the NAME heading: the heading changes, every value stays in its cell. Enter (or clicking away) applies it everywhere at once — chart, PDF pack, exported CSV — and one undo puts it back. Reserved names (ID, TO, COUNTER, VACANT, STAND-IN) and names already in use are refused in plain words.
• Drag the field rows to reorder them — and the order is the layout: the first field is the card's heading, the rest follow underneath, in your order. Want roles in the headings and names below? Drag ROLE above NAME. The new order applies everywhere at once — chart, PDF pack, and the CSV you export — and one undo puts it back.
• Empty cells never shuffle a card. If someone's first field is blank, the card shows a small ? in the heading and keeps everything else exactly where it is, so every box on the chart stays the same shape.
• Nothing is guessed from your column names. Morgano never looks for words like "name" — your headings can be in any language or jargon. The first column is simply taken as who the row is about, and you decide which one that is by dragging.

Vacant posts — the chart shows empty chairs

• Every chart can show a post with nobody in it. Edit any position and tick “Nobody in this position.” — the box turns dashed with a small VACANT tag. Untick to reverse; undo covers mistakes.
• The counts stay honest: boxes read “12 positions · 2 vacant”, cards show a vacant number, and the PDF cover states positions — filled · vacant. An empty chair is a position, never a person.
• Someone leaves? Tick the box on their card. If their name is still on the post, the card offers Move “their name” to Detached — one click: the post stays on the chart with its team, dashed and open; the person parks in Detached with their full details. Only the name leaves the post — clear anything else that belonged to the person rather than the desk.
• Filling a post works from every direction, always the same result: right-click the dashed box → Fill from Detached…; or the Fill button on its card; or a Detached person's Swap in for… clicked onto a dashed box; or plain Attach aimed at a dashed box — which simply asks: fill the post, or hang them under it?
• When a post is filled, the person's own details win and the post's details fill their blanks — a bare name arrives as “Thabo — Operations Manager — Durban” without retyping. One undo re-opens the post.
• In a file: a VACANT column marks empty posts — x, yes, ja, true or 1 means vacant; anything else means filled. The column is part of every chart automatically and travels with your CSV.
• Chart health keeps it honest: it announces vacant totals when a chart loads and warns when a vacant post still carries a name.
• Someone acting in the post? Every edit card carries two controls side by side: Vacant and Acting. Acting does not require vacancy — someone on maternity leave, study leave or an overseas trip still holds their post. Click Pick… on the Acting row, then click the person who covers it. The box then shows the acting person's name with an ACTING tag, and the holder's name moves into the box body, so both names stay visible. Your file keeps both truths.
• The acting note ends itself: whenever a new permanent holder arrives — a fill from Detached or a swap — the note clears and the toast says so. When the holder returns, one ✕ on the Acting row ends the cover. On a post already ticked Vacant whose old holder is still named, picking a stand-in also moves that person to Detached in the same click (one undo reverses both); on an occupied post the pick moves nobody.
• What "move to Detached" clears: exactly one thing — the first field, the one that says who the person is. The post keeps its role, department and everything else, so it still reads "Financial Manager — VACANT". Anything else that belonged to the person (a salary, a phone number) is a quick edit on your side, and nothing is ever lost: the person arrives in Detached with their whole record, and one undo reverses the move.

Your chart and your account

• Sign in and your chart is simply there. It lives on your account: close the tab, come back tomorrow, sign in at home or on another machine — same chart, no questions asked.
• The "Saved ✓" chip in the top bar means saved to your account. Offline for a while? It reads "Saved here — will sync": your work is kept on the machine and syncs up the moment the connection returns — the app keeps working in a wifi-less audit room. A red "⚠ Not saved" appears only if saving is truly broken, with a one-click CSV export to protect your work.
• New organogram never destroys anything: your current chart is automatically filed under Make ▾ Open saved chart… ("Auto-saved before you started a new chart") before the blank one appears.
• Signing out leaves nothing on the machine — the local copy is wiped, which is all a shared or borrowed computer needs.
• The person icon (top right) opens the account card: who you are signed in as, exactly what is stored for you (live chart, saved charts, working auditor links), plus Theme, Preview while pointing, Help and Sign out. The delete my data… link leads to the full page with the guarded two-click Delete everything. Files you exported are your own copies and are never affected.

Free and Pro

• Free covers the whole workshop. Build and edit without limits, import from CSV, Excel or a paste, use vacancies, acting posts, search, focus and the Detached bench — and export your data as CSV whenever you like.
• Pro is the deliverable. Watermark-free PDF, PNG and SVG; saved versions (named, dated, fingerprinted); expiring auditor share links; and merging department charts into one.
• One flat annual price per organisation — never per user. Pay in Rand or in dollars: the two buttons on the upgrade page show today's figures, and the Rand button also prints its dollar estimate so nobody is surprised by their bank's conversion.
• Instant, and honest: Pro switches on the moment the payment confirms. Nothing renews silently — a renewal is a payment you choose to make, and renewing early adds twelve months to what is left rather than resetting it. A payment is refundable in full within three days; after that, sales are final because the value is delivered immediately.
• Find it under the person icon → Upgrade to Pro.

Talk to us

• The person icon → Send feedback opens a small note: a suggestion, a problem, or a question. It goes straight to the person who builds Morgano.
• We read everything and fix what we can. If a message needs an answer, the reply comes by ordinary email to your account address.

Merging department charts

• Make ▾ Merge in another chart… adds another chart into the one on screen — HR's list plus Finance's list becomes one document. Merge from a saved chart, a file, or pasted cells.
• Nobody gets duplicated. People already on your chart are recognised (by exact name match) and skipped — their imported team simply hangs under your existing copy of them. If the imported file spells a detail differently, your chart's value is kept and the difference is listed in the notes panel.
• If the imported chart's top person is already on your chart, the merge needs zero clicks — their team attaches under them. If the top person is new, you click once: the manager they report to.
• Columns with the same name line up automatically. Only genuinely new columns ask one question each: "this is my ROLE" or "add as a new column". New columns arrive switched off — turn them on from Fields when wanted.
• Every merged person carries SOURCE ("Finance chart, merged 2 Aug 2026") and SOURCE_ID (their number in the source file) — provenance for an auditor, visible in the editor.
• Detached people merge too, sensibly: if either chart shows where someone belongs, that placement wins; nobody stays detached unless they are detached everywhere.
• A plain list of people merges straight to Detached: paste names with no manager column (or a file where every TO says #detached) and everyone lands in Detached in one act — no questions, duplicates skipped — ready to attach or to fill vacant posts.
• The notes panel reports the whole outcome — added, skipped, differences, new columns — and one Ctrl+Z reverses the entire merge.

CSV format (for hand-built files)

• ID: unique number or code for each person/position (e.g. 101 or E001).
• TO: the ID they report to. The top person has TO equal to their own ID, or empty.
• Every other column becomes a display field (NAME, ROLE, DEPARTMENT…).
• VACANT: reserved — x/yes/ja/true/1 marks the row as an empty post (see Vacant posts above).

COUNTER is calculated automatically — total positions in each branch. Semicolon-separated files (non-US Excel) work too. Detached people are stored with #detached in the TO column (see the Detached notes above) — leave those rows alone and they round-trip perfectly.

Download the sample CSV

Export

• Free or Pro? Building, editing and importing are free and unlimited, and your CSV export is always clean — it is your own data. On the free plan the PDF pack, PNG and SVG carry a "FREE TRIAL" watermark. Pro removes it and unlocks saved versions, auditor share links and chart merging. See Free and Pro below.
• Export ▾ PDF — the auditor pack: a cover page with a document-control table (document number, revision, dates, prepared/approved by), a top-level overview, then one readable page per branch with breadcrumbs and "continued on page X" markers. Every page carries "UNCONTROLLED WHEN PRINTED" and page numbers. The dialog states how much the pack will cover (in positions, with filled · vacant, once the chart has empty posts) — and warns in red if a focused branch or reporting-line view would make it partial (press Restore first to cover everything).
• Layers per page — Auto fits each page's slice to the paper (never too wide, never a tiny tower); or pick a fixed 2–5 layers for a uniform pack. Big flat teams print as compact grids either way.
• Export ▾ PNG / SVG — a picture of the chart exactly as you see it: view, collapsed branches and theme included. PNG for slides, walls and intranets; SVG scales to any size. Want it on white? Switch to the light theme first (person icon).
• Export ▾ CSV — downloads the master data file, Excel-safe (quoted, UTF-8), without the calculated COUNTER column. File it with your controlled documents and re-import it any time.
• Your data: the live chart is kept on your account — never sold, never shared, and yours to export in one click. An exported CSV or PDF is your own copy to file wherever you like. On a shared machine, just sign out — nothing stays behind in that browser.
• Export ▾ Save a version… — your work is already saved; a version is the milestone you keep: a named snapshot (tree and Detached people). Save as many separate charts as you like — company org, SHEQ structure, inspectors. Each carries a fingerprint (SHA-256): proof for an auditor that the chart is byte-identical to the one approved on a given date.
• Make ▾ Open saved chart… — load any saved chart back, delete one, or create an auditor link: a read-only page that expires after 30 days. The auditor sees the chart, cards, search and PDF export — no editing, no CSV download, and nothing is stored in their browser. Sent a link to the wrong person? Revoke links (N) on the saved chart stops every live link at once — the saved chart itself, your audit evidence, stays.

Position details — the pack's second half

• Tick “Full details for every position” in the PDF export dialog and the pack grows a second section: one entry per position, in the chart's own order, printing every column in full under your own headings — whatever you call them, in any language. Blank fields are skipped; positions with identical details share one entry that names its holders.
• Each entry also states Held by (or Vacant — nobody in this position), Reports to, direct reports, and the chart page it appears on — the same one controlled document, same revision, same page numbering.
• The ISO angle: ISO 9001, 45001 and 27001 all ask (clause 5.3) that responsibilities and authorities are assigned and communicated. Put them in a column in your file — call it whatever you like — and tick the box when you export: your chart and your duties become one dated, revision-numbered document.
• Nothing written down yet? Start from the starter template — sensible duty wording for common posts, ready to edit.
• Long text is easy to type in the app too: fields grow as you type; Enter still saves, Shift+Enter makes a new line.

Chart health

After every import the panel in the top-right lists anything that needs attention: people not shown (with the reason — missing manager, circular reporting line), skipped rows, and import reconciliation ("Imported 41 of 43 source rows"). An organogram used for an audit should show a clean bill of health.