How to build an org chart from a CSV (without cleaning the file first)

Payroll, your HRIS, or the spreadsheet the office manager keeps — any of them work. You need one row per person. Extra columns are ignored, so do not bother deleting them.

The columns that get used: name and title (required), then email, phone, department, location and manager. Header names are matched loosely, so "Full Name", "Job Title" and "Reports To" all land in the right place.

The manager column should contain the manager's email, or their exact name as it appears in the name column. It should not contain a job title. "Operations Manager" matches nobody; dana@company.com matches exactly one person, every time, even when two people share a name.

Exactly one row should have an empty manager: the person at the top. If every row is filled in, the reporting lines form a loop and the chart has no starting point.

Upload the file as-is. The import runs in two passes: first every person is created or matched by email, then the manager column is resolved against the finished roster. That ordering is why your file does not have to be sorted top-down — a row can name a manager that appears 400 rows later.

Re-importing the same file updates people instead of duplicating them, as long as the email column is present. That is what makes monthly refreshes safe.

Real exports are messy, so the report tells you exactly what did not resolve: manager values that matched nobody, names that matched more than one person, and reporting lines that were removed because they created a loop. Each one is a clickable link that opens that person for editing.

Anyone whose manager could not be resolved sits at the top of the chart until you pick one — nothing is silently guessed, and nobody quietly disappears.

Publish a read-only link for the people who only need to look, and add your admins as teammates so the chart does not depend on one person's laptop. Keeping it current after reorgs is a separate habit worth reading about.

• "Manager did not match anyone" — usually a title in the manager column, a typo, or a manager who is not on the roster at all.
• "Matches more than one person" — two employees share a name. Add a manager email column and re-import.
• "Reporting line removed — it created a loop" — A reports to B, and B reports back to A somewhere up the chain. Pick one of them and give them a real manager.
• Everyone appears at the top — the manager column is empty, or it holds employee IDs that do not match any email or name.

The free CSV template has the columns already laid out with a working example.