Create Organizational Charts in JavaScript

8 min read Jan 1, 2024

Org charts are graphical representations of organizational structures. Their purpose is to illustrate the relationships and relative ranks of positions within an organization. An org chart may also be referred to as an organization chart, organizational chart, or hierarchy tree or chart.

Are you looking for a JavaScript library to create an org chart with less effort and which is very effective? Then you are in the right place, because the Syncfusion JavaScript Diagram Library helps you do that with easy configuration settings. In this blog, I will walk you through the steps involved in the creation of an org chart using the Syncfusion Diagram Library.

Getting Started with a Simple Org Chart

Let’s create a simple org chart as shown in the below image using the Syncfusion Diagram Library. The Diagram control has a high-performing layout algorithm to arrange parent and children elements. It can load and lay out up to 1,000 nodes and 1,000 connectors in two to three seconds.

The Diagram control supports visualizing an org chart from the data source. This avoids having to manually feed data to individual nodes. The data source should be defined in JSON format and configured to the diagram.

Please refer to our help documentation to learn more about the dependent scripts and theme files required to integrate the Diagram control in a JavaScript application.
Define the employee information as a JSON array
Create an instance of the Diagram control.
Configure the data to the dataSourceSettings property of the created diagram instance.
In the Diagram control, the rectangular boxes shown in the screenshot represent nodes, and lines represent connectors. The text inside the rectangular box represents annotations.
When each node is created, the dataSourceSettings doBinding method will trigger. You can use this method to configure the employee information inside the node.
Since all the nodes have the same width and height, you can define the common formatting for all nodes through the getNodeDefaults method. Likewise, you can define the common formatting properties for connectors through the getConnectorDefaults method.
After configuring the data source, define layout type to arrange the parent and child nodes positions automatically.

The code example below includes all the previously discussed steps. The full sample is available on he inline demo here:

import {data} from './datasource.js';

var items = new ej.data.DataManager(data);

var diagram = new ej.diagrams.Diagram({
    width: "1000px",
    height: "600px",
    dataSourceSettings: {
        // set the unique field from data source
        id: 'id', 
        // set the field which is used to identify the reporting person
        parentId: 'manager', 
        // define the employee data
        dataManager: items,
        doBinding: function (node, data) {
            // You will get the employee information in data argument and bind that value directly to node's built-in properties.
            node.annotations = [{ content: data.role }];
            node.style = { fill: data.color };
        }
    },
    layout: {
        // set the layout type
        type: 'OrganizationalChart'
    },
    // set the common settings for node and connector
    getNodeDefaults: nodeDefaults,
    getConnectorDefaults: connectorDefaults,
    // hide the gridlines in the diagram
    snapSettings: { constraints: ej.diagrams.SnapConstraints.None }
});
diagram.appendTo('#diagram');

function nodeDefaults(node) {
    node.annotations[0].style.color = "white";
    node.width = 120; 
    return node;
}

function connectorDefaults(connector) {
    connector.type = 'Orthogonal';
    connector.targetDecorator = { shape: 'None' };
    return connector;
}

Features & Examples

Org Chart Shape Customization

You can easily create different types of org charts shapes and visualize them with custom UI design.

The setNodeTemplate method allows you to define a custom template for org chart. Please refer to the below code example for details.

//Funtion to add the Template of the Node.
function setNodeTemplate(obj, diagram) {
    // create the stack panel
    var content = new ej.diagrams.StackPanel();
    content.id = obj.id + '_outerstack';
    content.orientation = 'Horizontal';
    content.style.strokeColor = 'gray';
    content.padding = { left: 5, right: 10, top: 5, bottom: 5 };
  
    // create the image element to map the image data from the data source
    var image = new ej.diagrams.ImageElement();
    image.id = obj.id + '_pic';
    image.width = 50; image.height = 50; image.style.strokeColor = 'none';
    image.source = obj.data.ImageUrl;
  
    // create the stack panel to append the text elements.
    var innerStack = new ej.diagrams.StackPanel();
    innerStack.style.strokeColor = 'none';
    innerStack.margin = { left: 5, right: 0, top: 0, bottom: 0 };
    innerStack.id = obj.id + '_innerstack';
  
    // create the text element to map the Name data from the data source
    var text = new ej.diagrams.TextElement();
    text.style.bold = true;
    text.id = obj.id + '_name';
    text.content = obj.data.Name;
  
    // create the text element to map the designation data from the data source
    var desigText = new ej.diagrams.TextElement();
    desigText.id = obj.id + '_desig';
    desigText.content = obj.data.Designation;
  
    // append the text elements
    innerStack.children = [text, desigText];
    
    // append the image and inner stack elements
    content.children = [image, innerStack];
    return content;
}

Customized Org Chart

The full sample code is available here:

Expand and Collapse

Use the expandIcon and collapseIcon properties of nodes to implement the expand and collapse features of the tree-shaped org chart. The following code example illustrates this.

function nodeDefaults(node) {
  ….
  node.expandIcon = { shape: 'Minus' };
  node.collapseIcon = { shape: 'Plus' };
  return node;
}

Expand and Collapse Org Chart

The full sample for this feature is available here:

Drag-and-Drop (Editing Hierarchy Interactively)

You can easily modify the org chart interactively by dragging the child or parent nodes and dropping them at the desired locations. To enable editing of the hierarchical structure of the org chart, add the following code in the drop method of the Diagram control.

var diagram = new ej.diagrams.Diagram({
    ...    
    // trigger the drop event to update the org chart structure when drag and drop the child node.
    drop: drop
  });

function drop(args) {
    if (args.target && args.target instanceof ej.diagrams.Node) {
        var connector = diagram.getObject(args.element.inEdges[0]);
        connector.sourceID = args.target.id;
        diagram.dataBind();
        diagram.doLayout();
        // update your local data source when modifying org chart structure.
        updateDataSource(args.element, args.target);
    }
}
  
function updateDataSource(source, target) {
    var updateData = data.find(function(element) {
        return element.id === source.data.id;
    });
    if(updateData) {
      updateData.manager = target.data.id;
    }
}

Drag and Drop nodes in Org Chart