Org Explorer

Question

How do I get this set up? When I go to it in Outlook 365, I see employees in a straight line and it says "We don't have the necessary details to show the organization chart for [Moderator note: Personally Identifiable Information removed] Organization details are provided by your admin or human resources department." I am HR but I can't find any information on what to do so that we can see the company in an org chart format.

Answer 1

Hi @Debbie Totah

The org chart feature in Outlook (also known as Org Explorer) doesn't have a separate setup page it actually pulls the reporting structure directly from Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory). The message you're seeing "We don't have the necessary details to show the organization chart" typically means the Manager attribute hasn't been filled in for your users yet. Once that's populated, the org chart will build the hierarchy automatically.

Since you mentioned you're in HR, you'll want to work with your IT admin (someone with admin access to the Microsoft 365 admin center) to get this configured.

Here's what they'll need to do:

1. In Microsoft 365 Admin center:

• Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center at https://admin.microsoft.com
• Go to Users > Active users.
• 
• Select a user's name to open their profile.
• Find the Manager field and select Edit.
• 
• Search for and select the person's direct manager.
• Select Save changes.
• 
• Repeat this for each employee in the organization.

2. In Microsoft Entra Admin Center

• Open Microsoft Entra Admin Center at https://entra.microsoft.com
• Select Users > All users
• Search and click on the username whose manager you want to update
• In the user profile page, click on “Edit Properties”.
• 
• Under the “Job Information” tab, click on Edit next to the Manager.
• 
• Search and Select Manager from the menu.
• 
• Click on “Save” to confirm your changes.

Once the manager relationships are set, the org chart in Outlook should reflect the proper hierarchy after a short time for the changes to sync.

Please give this a try and let me know how it goes, if you run into any issues along the way, feel free to post back and I'll be happy to help further.

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Answer 2

Org Explorer reads its org chart data from Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD). Right now, the manager relationships for employees are not populated there, so Org Explorer can only show people in a flat list and displays the message about missing organization details.

To get a proper org chart:

1. Ensure manager fields are populated in Microsoft Entra ID
   • Each user object in Entra ID needs a manager relationship defined (who they report to).
   • This data is typically sourced from the HR system and synchronized into Entra ID.
2. Provision manager data from the HR system
   • If the manager relationships are maintained in an HR system, they can be imported into Entra ID using Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM) provisioning.
   • Once the manager relationships are in Entra ID, Org Explorer will automatically use them to build the org chart (no extra Org Explorer configuration is required).
3. Work with IT/identity admin
   • As HR, coordinate with the Microsoft 365/Entra ID administrator to:
     • Confirm that user accounts exist in Entra ID for all employees.
     • Populate or sync the manager attribute for each user.
   • After this is done and directory sync completes, reopen Org Explorer in Outlook to see the hierarchical org chart.

If the organization does not add manager data into Entra ID, Org Explorer cannot display the org chart and will continue to show the message currently seen.

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References:

• Org Explorer
• Introducing Org Explorer