A SharePoint org chart web part lets people see who reports to whom without emailing HR or digging through a spreadsheet. When someone new joins, or a team reshuffles, a live org chart on your intranet answers the question everyone quietly has: who is my manager, who sits above them, and who are the people on my team? This guide walks through your options, starting with the free built-in tools that ship with Microsoft 365, then the on-demand directory approach, so you can pick what actually fits your organisation.
What a SharePoint org chart web part is, and why teams want one
An org chart web part is a block you drop onto a modern SharePoint page that visualises reporting relationships. In Microsoft 365 those relationships already exist: every user profile can hold a manager field, and Microsoft Graph exposes both the manager and the direct reports for each person. An org chart web part reads that data and presents it, so the chart stays current as long as the underlying profiles are maintained.
Teams want one for a few practical reasons. New starters orient themselves faster, managers can confirm their team is correct, and anyone routing a request finds the right person more quickly. The catch is that org charts are only as accurate as the manager data behind them, so before you add any web part it is worth checking that manager fields are populated in your tenant.
The built-in Organization Chart web part
Microsoft 365 includes an Organization Chart web part at no extra cost, and for many teams it is the sensible first stop. It reads the manager relationship from a user's profile and draws a simple chart around a chosen person.
How to add an org chart to SharePoint, step by step
- Open the modern SharePoint page where you want the chart and select Edit.
- Hover over the section where you want the web part and select the circled plus icon to add a web part.
- In the toolbox search, type Organization Chart and select it from the results.
- In the web part, enter the name or email of the person the chart should centre on. The web part looks them up and draws their manager and direct reports.
- Select Republish to save the page.
That is genuinely all it takes, and for a single team page it works well. Its limits show up at scale. The web part is anchored to one named person, so it is not a searchable, tenant-wide directory. It shows a narrow slice of the hierarchy at a time, with little room for photos, presence, contact details or filtering. If manager fields are incomplete, the chart looks sparse.
The People web part
The People web part is a related built-in option, also free. Rather than drawing a hierarchy, it displays a curated set of profile cards, each showing a photo, job title and contact links pulled from Microsoft 365. You add it the same way: edit the page, add the web part, then type the names you want to feature.
People is ideal for a small, hand-picked group, for example a leadership team or a project group. It is not an org chart in the strict sense, because you choose the cards manually and it does not follow reporting lines. But if your need is "show me these specific people on this page", it is quick and effective, and it pairs neatly with the Organization Chart web part.
The org chart in SharePoint Spaces
SharePoint Spaces, Microsoft's tool for building immersive mixed-reality pages, also includes an org chart element you can place inside a 3D space. It draws on the same underlying profile data, presented within a Space rather than a standard page.
For most organisations this is a niche choice. Spaces suit a small number of showcase experiences, such as virtual tours or onboarding scenes, rather than everyday intranet pages. If you are already building a Space, the org chart element is a nice touch. Otherwise the Organization Chart web part is the more practical route.
The directory-app approach: manager and direct reports on demand
The built-in options are fine for a fixed page, but they do not give you a searchable directory where anyone can look up a colleague and then walk the hierarchy from there. That is where a directory app earns its place. Glow Cloud Directory is an SPFx web part for SharePoint Online that presents your Microsoft 365 people as live contact cards, with instant search, department and office location filters, an A to Z jump bar, Teams presence and profile photos.
For org charts specifically, every contact card has an Organisation tab. Open it and you see that person's manager and their direct reports, loaded on demand through a single Microsoft Graph batch call. From there you can step to the manager, then their manager, or down into any report's own team, so you can walk the reporting structure starting from anyone, not just a person you pre-selected on a page. It is worth being precise about what this is: the relationships are shown through person cards you navigate, rather than a single graphical tree diagram, which keeps it fast and always current with your tenant.
Because it runs entirely inside your tenant, the data stays put. Glow Cloud Directory uses only three read-only Microsoft Graph scopes, User.Read.All, Presence.Read.All and User-LifeCycleInfo.Read.All (work anniversaries), and runs as the signed-in user, so no directory data leaves Microsoft 365. Guests are excluded by default, and staff can maintain their own profile fields, which is how you keep the manager data behind any org chart accurate in the first place.
How to choose between them
Match the tool to the job rather than reaching for the biggest option by default:
- Organization Chart web part. Free, built in, and right for a single team or department page centred on one person. Best when your manager fields are well maintained and you only need a small slice of the hierarchy.
- People web part. Free and built in, for showing a hand-picked group of profile cards. Not a true hierarchy, but perfect for a leadership panel or project team.
- SharePoint Spaces org chart. Only worth it if you are already building an immersive Space. Overkill for an everyday page.
- A directory app. The right call when you want one searchable, tenant-wide people hub where anyone can find a colleague and then walk manager and direct reports on demand, with photos, presence and filtering alongside.
A sensible pattern is to use both: keep the free Organization Chart web part on a specific team page, and give the whole organisation a searchable directory for everything else. To compare the wider picture, see our more guides, including how to create an employee directory in SharePoint Online and, for teams affected by the sunsetting of the old profile experience, Delve retirement and employee directory alternatives.
If a searchable directory with manager and direct reports on demand sounds like what your intranet is missing, you can try it in your own tenant on a 14-day free trial from £29 per month per tenant with unlimited users, and see how it feels for your people before you commit.