An organisation chart - or organization chart, depending which side of the Atlantic you are on - is one of the first things people look for on an intranet: who reports to whom, who leads which team. Yet SharePoint Online has no built-in web part that draws one on a page. This guide covers what Microsoft 365 shows you natively, where it runs out, and how to put a live, always-current org chart on a SharePoint page without maintaining a diagram by hand.
What Microsoft 365 shows natively
Microsoft 365 already knows your reporting lines - they come from the Manager field in Entra ID (Azure AD). You can see them in a few places:
- Profile cards - hover a name in Outlook, Teams or SharePoint and the Organization tab shows that person's manager and direct reports.
- The People app and Delve - a per-person view of the chain around one individual.
- The People web part - lists selected people on a page, but as cards, not a hierarchy.
All of these are one person at a time. None of them draws the actual chart.
Where the native options stop
- There is no native web part that renders the whole hierarchy as a chart on a SharePoint page.
- The Manager field is a single line - it can't express matrix teams, multiple managers, dotted-line reporting, vacant roles or external contractors.
- Hand-built diagrams (Visio, PowerPoint, an exported image) look fine on day one and are wrong by the next reorg - nobody keeps them current.
- Building your own from Microsoft Graph is a genuine development project to write and then maintain.
The supported way: an SPFx org chart from Microsoft 365
The right approach is a SharePoint Framework (SPFx) web part that reads your directory live from Microsoft Graph and draws the chart client-side, as the signed-in user. That keeps it current automatically and stays supported across Microsoft's UI updates - no unsupported DOM hacks.
This is what Glow Cloud Kit Org Chart does: a pan-and-zoom chart built live from
Microsoft 365, with a SharePoint overrides list on top so you can add the things the
Manager field can't hold - matrix and dotted-line managers, external people and vacant roles - plus live
presence, photos, search and a card designer. It uses two read-only Graph scopes
(User.Read.All, Presence.Read.All), approved once by an admin.
A checklist for custom org charts that stay useful
- Decide the source: the Microsoft 365 directory alone, a SharePoint list, or hybrid (directory + overrides).
- Confirm the Manager field is populated in Entra for the people you want shown.
- Add overrides for anything the directory can't express - dotted lines, matrix managers, vacancies, contractors.
- Choose a starting (root) person or team, and a sensible default depth.
- Turn on presence and photos so the chart is useful, not just boxes.
- Test it on mobile and on a coloured page section.
Related
- Glow Cloud Kit Org Chart - the product overview.
- Org Chart setup guide - install and configuration steps.
- How to make SharePoint look modern.