A company’s organizational chart representation has always been a difficult task due to several reasons such as:
- Difficult to be up to date based on constant changes.
- Every organizational change has to reflected to a large dataset.
- Different aspects of organizational chart (Departmental / Hierarchical).
The task is even more difficult when using SAP ERP due it’s complex data structure and inadequate features for representing the organizational chart.
Tackling the issue can be quite easy using the appropriate tools for the task. In this example the following tools are used:
- Talend Data Integration to extract data from SAP and upload them in an external data base.
- MySQL as a relational data base to save the data, (any relational data base can be used) and
- Microsoft Visio.
To ensure up to date data flow the following process was designed:
- Daily download from SAP all necessary HR data and store in the database.
- Process the data to identify possible changes to organizational chart data and update accordingly.
- Update MS Visio organizational chart by refreshing the data so as to take into account the latest update.
To ensure you always have the latest data you need to import the organizational data from the data base to MS Visio using the import tool provided.
As soon as you import the data you can alter the chart and displayed information to what suites you best. MS Visio provides several design tools and shapes in order to find an appropriate set.
Finally, when the organizational chart is ready, it is necessary to link the data base records with MS Visio data-shapes.
This way you automatically update the Organizational chart shapes to the latest information from the source system just by pressing the refresh button.
