Guide

Organisation tree and chart

In many organisations the org chart is a slide deck redrawn once a year. In Rifena the organisation tree is live data: each group decides who sees whose data, who approves for whom and which payroll template applies. That is why structure changes happen on a draft, with undo, a change plan and publishing only when you are sure.

After this guide you know everything you can do with the organisation tree and chart: view it in several ways, search and filter, edit on a draft, publish safely, jump to group-scoped work, and understand what the tree drives across Rifena.

Open at: People → Organisation → Open organization tree or Open organization groups
Owner: An administrator or HR user assigned to manage the organisation
Access: Viewing needs group view access; editing needs access to create, update and deactivate groups

What the organisation tree can do

Show one structure in two views, Tree for quick browsing and Chart for the big picture, plus the Employee tree for managers and members.
Search the whole organisation and filter by type, status, level, manager, headcount and child groups.
Add child and sibling groups, rename, deactivate and drag to a new parent on a draft with undo.
Load a ready-made organisation template for a new company.
Publish the draft as an explicit change plan; the system rolls back on failure.
Jump to people, timekeeping, payroll runs, insurance, compliance, the payroll builder and role grants for the selected group.

Viewing the structure in two ways

Organisation tree view with departments and teams expanded and the detail panel of the selected group on the right — Each row shows headcount and child count; select a group to open its details and quick actions.

Tree lists groups by level with headcount and child count on every row. The toolbar has the Find organisation group box, buttons to add groups, Expand, Collapse, Focus chart and the shortcut panel. When a branch still has groups to load, a Load more groups button appears at the end of that branch.

Organisation chart view with the company node, departments and teams, and the floating group detail panel on the left — The chart colours nodes by level; the detail panel follows the selected node and can be pinned while you browse.

Chart draws the whole structure with zoom in, zoom out, Fit the whole chart, Reset layout and Download PNG. The counter in the corner shows how many groups are drawn. Large organisations load progressively with Load more on the chart.

Employee tree mode showing the manager and the members of a group by position level — The employee tree is read-only: the group structure cannot be edited from this mode.

View as employee tree in the detail panel of the Chart view switches to a diagram of the group’s manager and members. This mode is read-only; go back to the organisation chart to change the structure.

Display filters panel with quick filters and the criteria type, status, level, manager, headcount and child groups — Filters only apply to groups already loaded on the tree or chart; search scans the whole active organisation.

The search box scans the whole active organisation and takes you to the result on the chart. Display filters offers quick filters such as Missing manager, No employees, Inactive, Top level, and detailed criteria: type, status, level, manager, headcount, child groups and the selected branch. Compliance filters only inspect loaded groups, so load more before drawing conclusions in a large organisation.

Shortcut panel of the organisation tree listing the key combinations for editing, undo, saving a draft, publishing and opening group-scoped work — The keyboard button on the toolbar opens the full shortcut list for both view and edit mode.

Shortcut	Effect
Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + E	Toggle edit mode
A, Shift + A	Add a child node, add a sibling node while editing
R, Delete	Rename, deactivate the selected unit
Ctrl/⌘ + Z, Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + Z	Undo, redo
Ctrl/⌘ + S, Ctrl/⌘ + Enter	Save draft, publish the draft
Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + D	Discard the draft
F, Alt + Shift + → / ←	Focus the selected node on the chart, expand or collapse the whole tree
Ctrl/⌘ + K	Open quick actions
Alt + 1 … Alt + 5	Open people, timekeeping, insurance, group details, add an employee for the group

Editing the structure on a draft

Organisation tree in edit mode with the Exit editing, Undo, Redo, Save draft, Discard draft and Create from draft buttons — Every change in edit mode lives on a local draft until you choose Create from draft.

Choose Edit on chart to enter edit mode. Tree and chart share one draft: an edit in either appears in both. The toolbar state changes from Synced to Unsaved changes, with Plan: +create / ~update / −deactivate.

Context menu on a group in the tree with add child group, add sibling group, rename, deactivate and quick links to group-scoped work — The context menu gathers draft actions and shortcuts to people, timekeeping, insurance and group details.

Create child node in draft dialog with parent group, name, organisation type and short description — A new group has a temporary code in the draft and only receives its real code on publish.

In edit mode you can:

Add child group or Add sibling group from the context menu, A or Shift + A; enter the Name, pick the Organisation type and a short description.
Rename a group directly in the tree.
Deactivate unit: the group and all its children become inactive on publish; history and related configuration are kept.
Drag a group to another parent and confirm in Confirm parent change.
Undo and Redo each action; Save draft keeps the draft on your machine for later.

Organisation tree in edit mode with a newly added group and the plus-one change plan on the toolbar — Read the plan before publishing: how many groups will be created, updated and deactivated.

Loading an organisation template for a new company

Default organisation template picker on the chart with templates for a technology company, a manufacturer, a school and a hospital — The template lands in the draft; rename, add or remove groups, then Create from draft.

With an empty chart, choose Set up default organisation in edit mode and pick a template: technology company, manufacturer, school or hospital. Rifena loads it into the draft with a root node named after the organisation; edit freely before publishing. If the draft already has groups, a confirmation says the template will replace the current draft.

Discarding or publishing the draft

Confirmation dialog for discarding draft changes showing how many changes will be dropped — Discarding returns the tree to the last synced state; the confirmation always appears, even from the shortcut.

Discard draft drops every unpublished change after you confirm. Create from draft publishes the draft:

Rifena validates the draft: names are required and not too long, no duplicate names under one parent, a root exists, no circular parents.
Changes are sent in the order create, update, deactivate; the status bar shows each stage.
On completion a notification reports how many groups were created, updated and deactivated; the state returns to Synced and temporary codes become real ones.

If a stage fails, Rifena rolls back the temporary changes it created and keeps your draft so you can fix it and retry. Deactivating a group that still has active employees is rejected; move or remove them first.

Group details and quick actions

The detail panel appears when you select a group: name, type, level, status, description, headcount, manager and loaded child count. HR attention flags a group without a manager, without employees or inactive. You can Pin details to keep the panel while selecting other groups.

Button in the detail panel	Opens
People	The group’s employee list
Add employee	A new employee with this group as primary group
Shifts/timekeeping	The group’s timesheet
Employee payroll runs	Payroll runs filtered by the group
Insurance	Insurance of the group’s employees
Employee compliance	Violations and compliance by group
Payroll builder	The payroll template builder scoped to this group
Grant role for group	A role grant scoped to this group

Quick actions palette opened with Ctrl/⌘ + K, with the command search and quick actions such as a new payroll run, timekeeping, leave, overtime and adding an employee — Select several commands and Open selected to open the group's business screens one after another.

Group quick actions (Ctrl/⌘ + K) gathers those shortcuts in one search box; select several commands and Open selected to open them in working order.

What the tree drives

Data scope: a role granted By group only sees people in the selected groups, and their children when subgroups are included. See Roles, data access and approvals.
Approvers: approval workflows resolve Direct manager and Department head from the group’s manager. See Approval workflow builder.
Primary and secondary groups: every employee has one primary group that sets the department, approvers and scope; adding someone to another group from their profile only creates a secondary membership. Changing the primary group goes through an HR event in Career changes.
Payroll: a payroll template scoped By organisation applies to employees in the selected groups. See Payroll template builder.
Positions are a separate catalogue linked to employees through their job title; manage them at Open positions.

Safety and limits

There is no delete button: groups are deactivated to keep history, and only when no active employee remains.
The draft stays on your machine until Create from draft; other people do not see draft changes.
Temporary codes in the draft are negative numbers; do not reference them elsewhere before publishing.
Managers and members are changed on the employee profile and through HR events, not on the tree.
Drag-and-drop to a new parent is only enabled in edit mode and always asks for confirmation.

Organisation structure and positions for the first structure build.
Management by group to operate by group after publishing.
People and organisation issues when the tree, a group or a profile does not reflect a change.

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