Using the Staging Area

The Staging Area enables you to restructure or rearrange your chart by moving boxes in and out, changing reporting relationships or departments, and modifying the chart in other ways. You can also use the Staging Area to store data records that have been imported from an external data source, such as Excel, and then add them to a chart. In both scenarios, the Staging Area lets you design the most appropriate chart for your organization.

To use the Staging Area:

1   In the Basic Chart window, choose View > Staging Area. The Staging Area opens on the left side of the window, reducing the size of the chart area. You can modify the size of either panel by dragging the border that separates them. (The chevrons open and close either pane.)



Next, you are going to modify the chart by rearranging some boxes and look at some reporting relationships in more detail. To keep the chart readable, you are going to open the Tree View to make it easier to find and select boxes without displaying the entire chart.

2   Choose View > Tree View. The Tree View displays three chart levels, with expandable entries (indicated by the plus sign ).

You are going to modify the chart by moving an individual box, Roberto Garcis, and an entire department (Steve Johnson’s R&D group) into the Staging Area, and move two people from the R&D group back into the chart.

3   In the Tree View, double-click on Robert Garcis. The chart area changes to display his position within the chart.

4   Drag the box for Roberto Garcis into the Staging Area. Notice that the chart refreshes and the boxes realign when his box is removed.

5   Locate the box for Steve Johnson in the R&D group in the Tree View. To do this, click the plus button  next to Jim Jackson, VP of R&D, to expand the list of employee within that organization. Notice in the chart that Steve Johnson has subordinates that report to him, indicated by the arrow button .

6   Drag the box for Steve Johnson into the Staging Area, and click the plus button  to display the list of employees who are within his group. Notice that this entire group is removed from the hierarchy in the Tree View. The chart refreshes once again when Steve Johnson’s box is moved into the staging area.

The next procedure shows you how to move two employees back into the chart from the Staging Area.

To move two boxes (employees) back into the chart:

1   Click on Carla Lee, Developer, in the Staging Area, drag the mouse back into the chart area, and release it when the name is directly over the box for Jim Jackson, VP of R&D.  The chart refreshes to display Carla’s box within Jim Jackson’s organization.

2   Double-click on Claire Chancellor in the Tree View to display her box in the chart. Then, click the navigation arrow at the bottom to display subordinates.

3   Then, click on Matthew Montgomery, Integration Specialist, in the Staging Area, drag his name over the box for Claire Chancellor, and release the mouse button. Matthew now appears within Claire’s organization, his name is removed from the Staging Area, and reappears in the Tree View in the new reporting relationship.

4   Close the Staging Area and Tree View panes when you are done by clicking the Close box in the upper-right corner. If you have been working with the restricted chart view, as we have in these exercises, you can display more of the chart by selecting a high Level or expanding the navigation buttons for selected boxes. To keep the chart visible, lower the Zoom level.