Org Charts

I have been struggling with the task of making an Org chart for a few months now.  I started working on this project in July, but when school and volleyball started in August, I didn't get a chance to finish.  I met with the chair of this project last week and I realized half of what I had started wasn't really right anyways, so I started over.

I heard that Vizio was the best tool for making org charts.  I wanted a tool that would import data from a spreadsheet into the org chart and update itself when I updated the data spreadsheet.  I wanted expandable boxes and I wanted it to look pretty.  I can't figure out how to do any of that in Vizio (Yet!), but at least I was able to input my data by cut and paste, fairly quickly.  That's the good thing about Microsoft products - I can poke around in it for a few minutes and figure out how to use most of the tools.  Today was the first time I have ever used Vizio (and the first time I have ever created or used an org chart), and I finished in about an hour.  It's not the most beautiful thing, but I plan on opening it back up next week to straighten up the page layout. You can see why I wanted expandable boxes...  This thing prints on 9 pages.

Even though the task is completed (almost), and I have 5 more urgent tasks I should be working on.... I couldn't stop myself from searching for my dream org chart software when I got home.  As usual, I found a whole bunch of people asking the same question as me, but not getting any answers.  There seems to be a lot of free software out there for making flowcharts and mind maps, but nothing special for org charts.

I ended up downloading 2 apps from the Chrome Web Store. They are pretty cool, so I thought I would share them.

One is called Lovely Charts 

and the other is Lucid Chart. 

I liked Lucid chart a lot and it does have org chart drawing pieces, but it seems to be geared towards creative applications.  I played with the org chart for over an hour and never got it completed. They also limit the number of pieces you can use to 60 (on the free version).  The lines that connect the boxes count as a piece, so I would not have been able to complete my project with out purchasing the full version.  I'm going to keep it on my dashboard - I think it will come in handy for a different project.