Automatic shape selection on import

[jennifer_a]

Forgive me if this has been asked before, as I am new to the forum and to Visio in general.

I have a large org chart to build, about 800 people. I have gone in and forced Visio to use my custom shapes when I import my data, though we won't get into how I managed that.

The last frustration that I can't seem to overcome being that it is assigning the wrong position types to everyone despite the addition of a column in my database which identifies what "position" type I want Visio to use (not necessarily reflective of actual positions, but rather of the corresponding shape type I want it to use). I have narrowed down the key words and selected the box to have it match on drop, but to no avail. Also, when I change the position type, Visio isn't updating the formatting on the shape.

I am at my wit's end. The things I've already managed to force it to do were things that our IT department didn't think I could do. Luckily, I'm quite creative.

[Yacine]

Hi Jennifer,
The Google search "visio org chart custom shapes" brought amongst others a nice page from David Parker: http://blog.bvisual.net/2012/05/08/creating-a-custom-org-chart-template-with-extra-properties/
Would that help?