Getting started
OrgChart Builder turns a list of employees and managers into a clean, navigable org chart — right in your browser. Your data is encrypted on your device before it leaves your computer, so we cannot see who works where. There is nothing to install: open orgchartbuilder.app, sign in, and you are ready to import.
The fastest path from zero to chart is four steps:
- Create an account and save your recovery key.
- Click New chart and drop in a CSV from your HR system.
- Confirm the column mapping. We auto-detect most fields.
- Explore, edit, and share.
Try without signing up
You can explore OrgChart Builder without creating an account. Click Try without signing up on the homepage, or go directly to orgchartbuilder.app/chart/try. A 10-person sample org chart loads immediately — pan, zoom, edit cells, collapse subtrees, and explore the full interface.
Guest data lives in your browser tab only. Closing the tab clears everything. To keep your work, click Sign up to save — OrgChart Builder encrypts your chart and pushes it to your new account in one step, so nothing is lost in the conversion.
Create your account
Sign up with an email and a strong password. Your password is the key that unlocks everything you store with us — choose something you do not use elsewhere, and consider a password manager. We never see your password and we never see the plaintext of your charts.
Save your recovery key
Immediately after signup we show you a one-time recovery key — a long random string. Copy it into your password manager, print it, or stash it somewhere safe. If you ever forget your password, the recovery key is the only way back into your account.
Create your first chart
From the dashboard, click New chart. You will be asked to either import a CSV or start from a blank canvas. For most teams, importing is faster — even a 10-person spreadsheet beats hand-typing every node.
Each chart is independent and individually encrypted. You can create as many as your plan allows; the free plan supports up to 200 employees per chart.
Importing a CSV
OrgChart Builder works with any HRIS export — Workday, BambooHR, HiBob, Personio, or a plain spreadsheet. There is no required format. The minimum information we need to draw a chart is:
- A unique Employee ID per row
- A Name
- A Manager ID that points to another row's Employee ID
The first row of your file should be column headers. We auto-suggest matches for common
names like mgr_id, full_name, reports_to, or
department. Confirm or correct, then click Import.
Your mapping is saved automatically. Next month, when you re-export from your HRIS, you can re-import with one click and we will apply the same mapping.
manager_id, we will prompt you
before drawing — usually it indicates a typo in one of the manager IDs.
Simple vs Advanced mode
OrgChart Builder is role-centric: the hierarchy is made of roles, not people. Most users never need to know this — Simple mode hides roles entirely and behaves like a one-row-per-person spreadsheet. Advanced mode exposes roles so you can model vacancies, shared roles, and interim appointments.
One person, one row
Use this if your data is straightforward: every employee reports to exactly one manager, and you do not need to track unfilled positions or job-shares.
Roles & assignments
Use this if you have vacant positions, two people sharing a role, or someone acting in a senior role temporarily. Each row is a role; people are attached to roles.
You can switch between modes from the chart's settings panel. Switching does not delete data — Simple mode just hides the role layer.
Editing your chart
Once your data is in, you can edit it in three ways:
- Drag and drop a node onto a new parent in the chart view. The reporting line follows.
- Click a node to open its detail panel — change name, title, email, start date, or manager.
- Edit in the Table view for bulk changes. Paste from your clipboard the same way you would in a spreadsheet.
Every edit autosaves about 1.5 seconds after you stop typing. You will see a small status indicator near the chart name: saving…, saved, or paused if your changes contain a problem (like a cycle in the reporting structure).
Chart, Table & Summary views
Use the view switcher at the top of the workspace to flip between three perspectives on the same data:
Chart
The canonical org tree. Pan, zoom, collapse subtrees, and jump to any role by name with Cmd + K.
Table
Spreadsheet-like grid. Filter, sort, edit cells inline, paste-from-clipboard, and use keyboard navigation just like you would in Excel.
Summary
Headcount by department, level, or location. Identify management spans and surface your largest reporting lines at a glance.
Vacancies & validation
Switch to Advanced mode and you can leave a role's employee unfilled — it becomes a vacant role, rendered with an amber outline so headcount gaps are visible at a glance.
The status bar along the bottom shows validation issues for your full dataset — missing managers, circular reporting, orphaned employees, and duplicates. Hover a row in the Table view to see the specific issue tied to that record.
Version history & restore
Every save creates a new version. Open the History drawer (clock icon in the toolbar) to see a timeline of every save with an auto-generated one-line summary of what changed — for example "Added 3 employees", "Moved Priya Nair under VP Engineering", or "Deleted 2 employees". Summaries are computed at save time and stored inside the encrypted chart, so the server never sees the plaintext.
Click any past version to preview it in a read-only canvas. Click Restore to roll the chart back to that state — restoring creates a new save, so the version you replaced is still in the timeline.
History retention is plan-gated: 7 days on Free, 90 days on Pro, 365 days on Team, and unlimited on Company.
Scenario modelling
Available on Pro and above. Scenario modelling gives you a live diff against a known baseline — useful when you are midway through a reorganisation and want to track exactly what has changed since you started.
Click the Start Scenario button (flag icon) in the toolbar to capture the current state as your baseline. The button is replaced by a Scenario pill that shows a running change count: Scenario 24 May · 7 changes.
- Click the pill to open the Changes panel — a plain-language list of every structural change since the baseline ("Moved Alice Chen under CTO", "Added vacant: Head of Design", "Promoted role: Senior Engineer → Staff Engineer").
- Click Download CSV in the Changes panel to export the full diff for a board pack or approval process.
- Click the ✕ on the pill to end the scenario. The live chart is untouched; the baseline is cleared.
Exporting to PDF & SVG
Click the Export button in the toolbar to download your chart. Free plan users get a direct PDF download. Pro, Team, and Company plans open a full export dialog with format options.
Multi-page PDF
Large charts paginate automatically — each subtree gets its own page, with a clickable table of contents and + N more badges that jump to the right page. Free plan exports include a small OrgChart Builder footer.
Scalable vector
Crisp at any zoom. Best for slide decks, Figma, or anywhere you need to resize the chart without losing quality. Exported SVG uses the same card layout as the PDF.
PDF options (Pro+)
- Contents (TOC) — clickable table of contents page at the front (on by default).
- Title page — a centred title page with the chart name and export date.
- Index page — an alphabetical employee index appended at the back, with each entry linking to the employee's subtree page.
SVG options (Pro+)
- Max depth — truncate the tree at N levels. Roles below the limit collapse into a + N more badge on the last visible card.
- Max team width — cap how many direct reports appear side-by-side before wrapping into a grid inside a bounding box.
Chart themes
Four visual themes are available from the chart settings panel (⚙ cog button in the toolbar). Light is the default and works on every plan. The other three are Pro+.
Clean & print-friendly
White cards on a neutral canvas. The classic look — good for screenshots and PDFs.
Dark mode
Slate canvas with dark card colours. Easier on the eyes in low-light settings.
Frosted glass
Gradient canvas with translucent cards and rounded corners. Polished for presentations.
Full control
Pick your font stack, accent mode (solid colour, per-department, or by depth), accent colour, surface colour, canvas colour, and card border weight (1–4 px).
The active theme is saved per chart. Exports (PDF and SVG) always use a clean print aesthetic regardless of the active theme.
Team collaboration
Team and Company plans let multiple users share an account and collaborate on org charts. Team supports up to 10 users; Company is unlimited.
Inviting team members
Go to Settings → Plan and use the Team Members section to invite colleagues by email. Each invitation includes a one-time link; on registration, the new member is automatically joined to your team at no extra steps. Invitations expire after 7 days and can be resent or revoked at any time.
Sharing charts with teammates
From the dashboard, click the people icon on a chart card to open the Team Share panel. Add or remove teammates' access to that specific chart. Each member receives their own encrypted copy of the chart key — you never grant raw access to the server, only to specific key material sealed for that person's device.
Editor lock
Only one person can edit a chart at a time. When a teammate opens a chart for editing, others see a "Being edited by …" notice with a read-only view of the current state. A Take over editing button appears if the current editor's lock has gone idle (the lock expires automatically after about 20 seconds of inactivity).
Security model
OrgChart Builder is built around zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption: your browser holds the keys, and our server only ever sees encrypted bytes. Here is the one-paragraph version of how it works.
- When you sign up, your browser generates a random 32-byte master key. Your password unwraps this key — it is never derived from your password directly, so changing your password is fast and does not require re-encrypting any data.
- Each chart has its own data encryption key (DEK), wrapped under your master key. Charts are encrypted with XChaCha20-Poly1305 before they leave the browser.
-
Share links use the same DEK, embedded after the
#in the URL so it never reaches our server.
For the full technical write-up, see the Security section on the homepage or download the security whitepaper.
Plans & limits
Every plan — including Free — uses the same end-to-end encryption. Plans differ in headcount limits, history retention, collaboration features, and self-hosting.
See pricing for the full comparison.
Troubleshooting
My CSV import shows two roots.
Usually one row has a typo in manager_id or refers to an employee who is
not in the file. Open the Table view, sort by Manager ID, and look for the row whose
manager is empty when it shouldn't be.
The status bar says "paused — cycle detected".
Someone reports to themselves, directly or transitively. We will not save until the cycle is broken. Open the offending node and change its manager.
I forgot my password and don't have my recovery key.
We are not able to recover your data — this is the deliberate trade-off of zero-knowledge encryption. You can create a new account and re-import your CSV.
My share link recipient sees "could not decrypt".
The decryption key after the # was probably stripped — some email clients
and chat apps will truncate or rewrite URLs. Try sending the link in plain text or via
a different channel.
I can't edit the chart — it says "being edited by someone else".
Another team member holds the editor lock. Wait for them to finish, or click Take over editing — that button appears once their lock goes idle (roughly 20 seconds after they stop making changes or close the tab).
The scenario button is missing.
Scenario modelling is a Pro+ feature. On the Free plan the toolbar button is hidden. Upgrade from Settings → Plan to unlock it.
A team member I invited says they can't see a chart I shared.
Sharing a chart with a teammate is separate from inviting them to your team. After they accept the invitation, go to the chart on your dashboard, click the people icon, and add them in the Team Share panel.