Using WBS Chart Pro 5 to Create Hierarchical Charts from Excel

Introduction
WBS Chart Pro is a windows-based application that can produce Hierarchical (tree-style) charts from data in Microsoft Excel. The WBS in WBS Chart Pro stands for Work Breakdown Structure and is a Project Management term used to describe a way to plan projects using a Top-Down diagram known as a WBS chart. Although WBS Chart Pro can be used to plan and display projects, it can also be used to display a variety of hierarchical diagrams. Included with WBS Chart Pro (version 5.0 and later) is an Excel wizard that simplifies the process of creating Hierarchical charts from Excel Spreadsheet data.

Creating Hierarchical Charts from Excel

There are three ways you can use WBS Chart Pro to create Hierarchies from Excel data depending on how this data is stored in Excel. You can create a Hierarchical chart of the data if your spreadsheet contains: 1. A column defining the hierarchy (1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1, etc.). 2. A Reports To or Parent column. 3. Multiple columns of grouping values. Each of these is described below. You can follow along by installing WBS Chart Pro and using the sample Excel files provided. See the instructions at the end of this document for installing and configuring WBS Chart Pro and Excel.

1. Creating a chart from a single hierarchical column

If the data in your Excel Spreadsheet contains a hierarchy that you defined you can use this to create a chart in WBS Chart Pro. For example, your data may look like this:
WBS 1 1.1 1.1.1 1.1.1.1 1.1.1.2 1.1.1.3 1.1.2 1.1.2.1 1.1.2.2 1.2 1.2.1 1.2.1.1 1.2.1.2 1.2.2 1.2.2.1 Name United States Texas Austin John Smith June Jones Mark Bradley Dallas Jim Spencer Audrey McLaine California Los Angeles Blake James Stacy Tolley San Francisco Steve Kearon Critical Tools, Inc. 7308 West Rim Drive Austin, Texas 78731 Phone 512-342-2232 www.criticaltools.com support@criticaltools.com

Using WBS Chart Pro 5 to Create Hierarchical Charts from Excel

To produce a chart like this:
United States

Texas

California

Austin John Smith June Jones Mark Bradley

Dallas Jim Spencer Audrey McLaine

Los Angeles Blake James Stacy Tolley

San Francisco Steve Kearon

To produce this chart in WBS Chart Pro: 1. Open the Excel spreadsheet file Single Column Hierarchy.xls located in the WBS Chart Pro folder (by default this is C:\Program Files\WBS Chart Pro). 2. Click the red Excel to WBS Wizard toolbar button (if you dont see the WBS button in Excel, run WBS Setup again and choose to configure Excel when prompted). 3. In Step 1 of the Wizard, enter 1 in the Header Row field and click Next. 4. In Step 2, select In a single column and click Next. 5. In Step 3, the WBS and Name fields are automatically entered. Click Finish. This will start WBS Chart Pro and automatically create a chart. 6. The chart that appears looks different then the one above. This is simply the default View of the data. Using the Views pane on the right side of the screen select WBS Chart View to make it appear as above.

2. Creating a chart using Reports To or Parent column

If you have two columns of data in your Spreadsheet where one is a list of items and the other defines the Parent of each item then use the following approach to creating hierarchical charts. The simplest way to describe this approach is that of an Organizational structure where you have a list of Employees and the people they Report To. You may have a list like this:
Employee Jim Joe Ellen Reports To Fred Fred Beth Critical Tools, Inc. 7308 West Rim Drive Austin, Texas 78731 Phone 512-342-2232 www.criticaltools.com support@criticaltools.com

Using WBS Chart Pro 5 to Create Hierarchical Charts from Excel

Stacy Steve Fred Beth Bill Beth Beth Bill Bill

The corresponding WBS chart could look like this:

Or, you may have more than one field of data that you are trying to represent. For example, you may have Employees and a Number and wish to Group by Manager. The spreadsheet would look like this:
Employee Jim Joe Ellen Stacy Steve Fred Beth Bill Reports To Fred Fred Beth Beth Beth Bill Bill Number 555-2873 555-1874 555-7374 555-4374 555-3927 555-1212 555-6471 555-3243

The corresponding WBS chart could look like this:

Critical Tools, Inc. 7308 West Rim Drive Austin, Texas 78731 Phone 512-342-2232 www.criticaltools.com support@criticaltools.com

Using WBS Chart Pro 5 to Create Hierarchical Charts from Excel

Note: The variations in the two hierarchical charts displayed above represent features in WBS Chart Pro to display different Views. You achieve this in WBS Chart Pro by switching Views or by defining your own View to display the fields and the orientation of the chart. To produce the chart in the second example above: 1. Open the Excel file Reports To.xls located in the WBS Chart Pro folder (by default this is C:\Program Files\WBS Chart Pro). 2. Click the red Excel to WBS Wizard toolbar button (if you dont see the WBS button in Excel, run WBS Setup again and choose to configure Excel when prompted). 3. In Step 1 of the Wizard, enter 1 in the Header Row field and click Next. 4. In Step 2, select Using a Parent or Reports To Column and click Next. 5. In Step 3, the Employee and Reports To fields are automatically entered. Click Next to continue. 6. In Step 4, the Number column is automatically mapped to the Text1 field. For most data you can map columns to Text fields in WBS Chart Pro. These Text fields (Text 1 thru Text 30) are spare fields that can contain any type of data. Use these to place columns of information from your spreadsheet into your WBS chart. 7. Click Finish. This will start WBS Chart Pro and automatically create a chart.

3. Creating a chart using multiple columns

If you have multiple columns that define the hierarchy this third method allows you to create charts using various columns to group the items. An example of this is below:
Name Widget INT3402 Widget EXT9950 Widget EXT9951 Widget EXT9957 Widget INT3403 Widget INT3404 Widget INT3405 Widget INT3406 Widget INT3415 Widget INT3408 Widget INT3409 Widget INT3410 Widget INT3411 Widget INT3412 Widget EXT9953 Model 3400 Widget 9950 Widget 9950 Widget 9950 Widget 3400 Widget 3400 Widget 3400 Widget 3400 Widget 3400 Widget 3400 Widget 3400 Widget 3400 Widget 3400 Widget 3400 Widget 9950 Widget Widget Type Interior Exterior Exterior Exterior Interior Interior Interior Interior Interior Interior Interior Interior Interior Interior Exterior Location California California California California California California California California California California Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Responsible John Smith John Smith John Smith John Smith John Smith John Smith Steve Davis Steve Davis Steve Davis Steve Davis Steve Davis Steve Davis Steve Davis Steve Davis Steve Davis

Critical Tools, Inc. 7308 West Rim Drive Austin, Texas 78731 Phone 512-342-2232 www.criticaltools.com support@criticaltools.com

Using WBS Chart Pro 5 to Create Hierarchical Charts from Excel

Widget EXT9954 Widget EXT9955 Widget EXT9956 Widget EXT9952 Widget EXT9958 Widget INT3413 Widget INT3414 Widget INT3407 Widget INT3416 9950 Widget 9950 Widget 9950 Widget 9950 Widget 9950 Widget 3400 Widget 3400 Widget 3400 Widget 3400 Widget Exterior Exterior Exterior Exterior Exterior Interior Interior Interior Interior Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Texas Steve Davis Steve Davis Steve Davis Brad Jones Brad Jones Brad Jones Brad Jones Brad Jones Brad Jones

This method of displaying a hierarchy gives you the flexibility of grouping on any combination of columns that contain grouping data. For example you could display the above spreadsheet by Widget Type:

Or by Widget Location:

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Using WBS Chart Pro 5 to Create Hierarchical Charts from Excel

Or by Widget Type and Location:

To produce charts in the example above: 1. Open the Excel file Multiple Columns.xls located in the WBS Chart Pro folder (by default this is C:\Program Files\WBS Chart Pro). 2. Click the red Excel to WBS Wizard toolbar button (if you dont see the WBS button in Excel, run WBS Setup again and choose to configure Excel when prompted). 3. In Step 1 of the Wizard, enter the Row number for the header row (if you have one, leave blank if not), starting row and (optional) ending row. Click Next. 4. In Step 2, select User Defined Groups and click Next.
Critical Tools, Inc. 7308 West Rim Drive Austin, Texas 78731 Phone 512-342-2232 www.criticaltools.com support@criticaltools.com

Using WBS Chart Pro 5 to Create Hierarchical Charts from Excel

5. In Step 3, the columns are automatically mapped. Click Next to continue. 6. In Step 4, select the column(s) you wish to use to group your chart. Pick one of two depending on how you wish to display the chart. 7. Click Finish.

Tips for Mapping Fields from Excel to WBS Chart Pro

In WBS Chart Pro the lowest level items in a chart are referred to as Tasks. These tasks display the Name field so when importing your data from Excel you need to map the main piece of data to the Name field in WBS Chart Pro. All other data and grouping fields must be mapped to corresponding WBS Chart Pro fields. The Excel to WBS Chart Pro wizard helps you with this mapping and also with field titles so you can refer to these fields as you wish. Additional information associated with your data can be imported into other WBS Chart Pro fields depending on the type of information being imported: If the data is Text based then map to the fields Text1 Text30. If it is date data then map to the Start1 Start 10 fields or the Finish1 Finish10 fields. If Number data, map to Number1 Number10. If you are not sure which field to map to in WBS Chart Pro, select the Text fields (Text1 through Text30).

Setup and Configuration

You need the following to create Hierarchical charts from Excel: 1. Microsoft Excel You need to have Microsoft Excel installed on your computer. The WBS wizard does not read spreadsheet files (.XLS) directly, it is an Excel Add-in that is run from within Excel. 2. WBS Chart Pro You need WBS Chart Pro version 5.0 or later installed on your computer. The Excel to WBS Chart Pro wizard does not work with version of WBS Chart Pro earlier than 5.0. 3. Excel to WBS Chart Pro Wizard and Sample Files During WBS Chart Pro Setup you are asked if you wish to configure Excel with the Excel to WBS Chart Pro Wizard. Answer Yes to install the WBS Chart Wizard Add-in into Excel. WBS Chart Pro Setup also copies three sample Excel files to the C:\Program Files\WBS Chart Pro folder (or wherever you installed WBS Chart Pro). These
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Using WBS Chart Pro 5 to Create Hierarchical Charts from Excel

files are called Reports to.xls, Multiple Columns.xls and Single Column Hierarchy.xls. Use these files with the examples in this document to help get you started.

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