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Changing Lateral Positions Without Altering Who They Report To in Microsoft Word 2016 SmartArt Hierarchy Charts

Anonymous
2017-08-09T15:06:42+00:00

I originally created our organizational chart in Microsoft Word 2007 a few years ago. I am currently updating our organizational chart, and we have since upgraded to Microsoft 2016. I have re-created the chart in the 2016 software, but am having trouble successfully putting the finishing touches on it so it can be completed.

Essentially what I need to do is "demote" someone, without changing who they report to. In our organizational hierarchy, multiple people report to the assistant manager, but some are lower on the hierarchy than others. Every time I try to demote them, it's changing who they report to. I still need them to report to the assistant manager, not go underneath someone else.

For example, 3 employees report to the AM: the DO, BC, and MA. The DO also has quite a few employees who report to them, but the BC and MA do not because they are single-person departments. Although all three of these positions report to the AM, the BC and MA are both lower on the hierarchy than the DO. They're actually lateral to some of the DO's subordinates. I would like my organizational chart to reflect this, showing all three reporting to the AM, but with the BC and MA hanging lower so they're in line with the positions they're lateral to instead of appearing to be lateral to the DO.

Does anyone know how to do this? No articles I'm finding address this problem no matter how I phrase it, and the live chat Microsoft Support was unable to assist.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-08-17T23:50:54+00:00

    Hi Ashley,

    We appreciate your reply, please don't hesitate to get back to this thread if you encountered further issues or if MVP Jay Freedman's reply solved your issue.

    Kind regards.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-08-17T23:09:55+00:00

    I will give this a try when I get back to work and let you know how it goes! Hopefully this will get the job done in my version. I knew I'd done it before on previous versions, so I figured there must be a way I wasn't finding. Thanks so much for the help!! :)

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-08-09T19:06:17+00:00

    Hi Ashley,

    We've sent you a private message. Kindly reply to us with the information that we need.

    We're looking forward for your response to have escalated to our Tier 3 support team.

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  4. Jay Freedman 207.7K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2017-08-09T18:58:51+00:00

    I'm really sorry to hear about your "adventure" with the Support groups. Besides having some strange rules imposed on them by management about who can get support for which software, they often don't have a lot of experience using the software. Next time, come here first.

    To adjust the positions of SmartArt objects, you can usually (!) click on the object to make its "handles" (the little circles) visible; then position the cursor on the object's outline so the cursor becomes the four-arrow icon, and drag the object to where you want it. In the picture below, I've already done that with the BC box and I'm preparing to drag the MA box:

    After dragging the MA box to the same lower line as the BC box, it looks like this:

    The connectors adjust automatically. You might have to nudge the position a bit with the up and down arrow keys to make the connectors look right.

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  5. Anonymous
    2017-08-09T15:28:36+00:00

    I should also have probably mentioned above that I wound up speaking with several technical support folks over the phone as well. When Live Chat couldn't help, they referred me to the support phone line.

    I called and explained my problem, and they transferred me to Professional Support. I explained my problem again and they said this would be something that Office Technical Support would handle. I explained my problem for the fourth time to them and they asked what kind of Office I was using. I explained (again since I had just told them) that it was Word 2016. She asked if that was Office 365 and I said no. She had me go to the File page on Word and read what was there. It says Microsoft Office Standard 2016, which I told her again. She then said she couldn't assist me if I was on a domain computer (I'm on a computer at work that accesses a shared network, apparently this is a domain computer? Not really sure and she couldn't explain to me what she meant...). She then told me that this problem was something that Professional Support would handle. I told her that I was just on the phone with them and they transferred me to her. She said she understood but they were "exempted" from assisting me due to being on a domain computer (which I'm still not sure what exactly that was referring to).

    I finally just said fine and hung up, because the chat could not assist me nor could the three departments I spoke with on the phone. I've exhausted every Word 2016 article I can find on creating the organizational charts using the SmartArt hierarchy tool, and I just can't seem to find an answer anywhere. If the answer is that it can't be done, that's fine, I'd just like to know one way or the other for sure.

    ***Personal information deleted by the moderator. Please see the Microsoft Community Frequently Asked Questions for more information on how you can protect your privacy.***

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