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Display dotted-line managers in Org Chart for SharePoint and Microsoft Teams (SharePoint list)

Note

For the versions earlier than 4.x.x (including on-premises ones), please follow this instruction.

In this article, we’ll review how to display dotted-line reports in the Plumsail Org Chart with SharePoint list data source. It is quite a common scenario for companies with a matrix organization structure when there are direct managers and dotted-line managers.

As Plumsail Org Chart displays hierarchy, but not matrix, it is important to understand how dotted-line reports appear in the visualization. Please take a look at the example below.

Dotted-lines managers example

Note

Org Chart allows you to specify one or more dotted-line managers for an employee. Thus, a single employee may have a single direct (solid line) manager and an unlimited number of dotted-line managers.

If a solid line employee has a dotted-line manager, there will be displayed a small button next to the solid line box. It allows you to quickly navigate from the solid box to a dotted-line manager. If the employee has more than one dotted-line manager, you will navigate to the first one specified in the corresponding field.

Dotted lines navigation

Dotted-line managers for SharePoint list data source

If you choose the SharePoint list data source, you need to specify mappings of list columns in the Data source step of the configuration wizard:

Settings

In my case, I use the “Single line of text” list column, Work email, as an ID of an employee. And I also created a separate “Single line of text” list column, Dotted-line Manager Email, to store information about the dotted-line manager for an employee.

You can see the configuration for the column below:

Dotted-line managers column

Thus, I created a separate column for a dotted-line manager and specified it in the mapping of the configuration wizard.

You can use another type of column to store information about dotted-line managers, for example, lookup.

How to add support for multiple dotted-line managers per employee for SharePoint list data source

If you want to add support for multiple dotted-line managers per an employee you have two options:

  1. Create a multivalue lookup instead of regular lookup. This will allow you to pick multiple dotted-line managers using lookup field.

  2. Or create a regular “Single line of text” list column. This will allow you to specify a semicolon separated list of dotted-line managers.

Examples:

  • 1; 2; 14; 18 if you use numbers as employee IDs.

  • manager1@contoso.com; manager2@contoso.com; manager3@contoso.com if you use email addresses (account names) as employee IDs.

Note

Check out how to display dotted-line managers for the User profiles, Entra ID, and Excel/CSV data sources. You can also refer to the blog post that provides a complete overview of all these options with examples and visuals.