Who it’s for: All users
Platform: Sense HR
Available on: All plans
Before you begin
Make sure you’ve:
☑️ Logged in
☑️ Been given access to Organisation Explorer through your access role
☑️ Familiarised yourself with the basic Organisation Explorer controls
💡 Tip:
If you need help searching, changing layouts, customising cards, navigating the chart, exporting, or printing, see Organisation Explorer: View and navigate your organisation.
Overview
Organisation Explorer gives you different ways to look at the same workforce information.
Instead of relying only on a traditional reporting hierarchy, you can organise people by:
Hierarchy
Job title
Department
Location
Subcompany
You can then display that information using:
Classic
Wheel
Radial
In Classic layout, you can also customise employee cards to show the information that is most useful to you, such as Location, Department, or today’s Status.
Combining these options can help you investigate different organisational questions — for example:
Who reports to whom?
How are particular roles distributed?
Who belongs to each department or location?
Which people have not been assigned to a particular organisational group?
How does one part of the organisation connect to another?
Who is working today within a particular part of the structure?
🖊️ Note:
Organisation Explorer provides different visual perspectives on your existing organisational data. It does not currently calculate organisational-health metrics or make recommendations automatically.
Choose the right combination
A useful way to approach Organisation Explorer is to think about three questions:
What do I want to explore?
Choose an Organisation view.
How do I want to see it?
Choose a Layout.
What employee information matters while I explore it?
Customise the cards in Classic layout.
For example:
Question: Where do employees with the same job title sit across the organisation?
Organisation view: Job title
Layout: Classic, Wheel, or Radial
Question: Which departments have people working across several locations?
Organisation view: Department
Layout: Classic
Card details: add Location
Question: Who is working today in this part of the reporting structure?
Organisation view: Hierarchy
Layout: Classic
Card details: add Status
Explore reporting relationships
Recommended combination:
Organisation view: Hierarchy
Layout: Classic
Use Hierarchy + Classic when you want the clearest view of reporting relationships.
This can help you understand:
who reports to whom
where someone sits in the reporting structure
who reports directly to a particular manager
how many levels sit beneath a manager
the shape of a particular branch of the organisation
where several management layers exist between employees and senior leaders
Use Collapse all to reduce a large structure, then expand selected branches using the individual arrow 
controls.
This can make it easier to focus on one reporting structure without the rest of the organisation taking up the screen.
Use Hierarchy with Classic layout to follow reporting relationships and expand individual branches.
Compare the shape of different reporting structures
Recommended combination:
Organisation view: Hierarchy
Layout: Classic
Use: Expand and collapse individual branches
You can also use the hierarchy to compare the shape of different management structures.
For example, you may notice that:
one manager has a broad group of direct reports
another structure contains several management layers
some branches are much larger than others
an employee appears in an unexpected reporting position
Organisation Explorer does not calculate formal span-of-control metrics, but the structure can help you visually compare reporting arrangements and identify areas you may want to investigate further.
Explore where particular roles sit
Recommended combination:
Organisation view: Job title
Layout: Classic
Use Job title + Classic when you want to group people by the jobs they perform.
This can help you explore questions such as:
Who holds a particular job title?
How many different job-title groups are represented?
Which people share the same role?
Are similar roles concentrated in one part of the workforce?
Are particular roles spread across several departments or locations?
Use Show unassigned if you also want to include people without an assigned job title.
💡 Tip:
Add Department or Location to the employee cards to add extra context while exploring job titles.
See relationships between roles and people visually
Recommended combination:
Organisation view: Job title
Layout: Wheel or Radial
Wheel and Radial layouts provide a more visual way of exploring the relationship between job-title groups and the people associated with them.
Hover over a person or group to highlight its connections.
This can be useful when the Classic layout becomes too large or when you want to understand the relationship between groups without reading every employee card.
Wheel is useful for following connections around a compact circular structure.
Radial spreads the structure across concentric levels, which can make larger patterns easier to inspect.
Wheel and Radial layouts provide alternative ways to explore connections between people and organisational groups.
Understand departmental structure
Recommended combination:
Organisation view: Department
Layout: Classic
Use Department + Classic to view people according to the department they belong to.
This can help you:
see who belongs to each department
navigate a large workforce by functional area rather than reporting line
compare the size and structure of different departments
identify people whose department may need reviewing
add other employee details to understand how a department is distributed
The Department view answers a different question from Hierarchy:
Hierarchy: Who reports to whom?
Department: Which functional area does each person belong to?
Those structures may not always be identical.
Add Location for more context
Add Location to your employee cards if you want to see whether members of a department work from different sites.
This combination can help you explore geographically distributed departments without changing away from the Department view.
Explore your workforce by location
Recommended combination:
Organisation view: Location
Layout: Classic, Wheel, or Radial
Use Location when you want to understand where people are based.
This can help you explore:
who belongs to each location
which roles or departments are represented at a site
whether a team is concentrated in one location or distributed
whether anyone is missing a location assignment
Add Department or Job title
In Classic layout, adding Department or Job title to the cards can give you more context.
For example:
Organisation view: Location
Card detail: Department
This lets you see which departments are represented within each location.
Or:
Organisation view: Location
Card detail: Job title
This lets you see the types of roles represented at each location.
This can support activities such as workforce planning, site communications, or reviewing how teams are distributed.
Explore a multi-company organisation
Recommended combination:
Organisation view: Subcompany
Layout: Classic
Use Subcompany to group employees according to the subcompany they are assigned to.
This can be useful for organisations operating across multiple companies or legal entities.
You can use it to explore:
who belongs to each subcompany
which roles are represented within each one
which departments operate across multiple subcompanies
whether anyone is missing a subcompany assignment
In Classic layout, add Department, Location, or Job title to the cards if you need more detail about how each subcompany is structured.
Identify people who are not assigned
The Show unassigned toggle can be particularly useful when reviewing organisational data.
Turn it on when using Organisation views such as:
Job title
Department
Location
Subcompany
This includes people who do not currently have a value assigned for the selected grouping.
For example:
Department + Show unassigned
Can help you spot employees who do not have a department assigned.
Location + Show unassigned
Can help you identify employees without a location.
Subcompany + Show unassigned
Can help you find people who may need a subcompany assignment.
💡 Tip: Showing unassigned people can help administrators identify records that may need reviewing.
Add today’s working status to organisational context
Recommended combination
Organisation view: Any
Layout: Classic
Card detail: Status
Add Status to your Classic cards when you want to see organisational information alongside each person’s current working status.
For example, you could use:
Hierarchy + Status
to see current status while looking through a reporting structure.
Or:
Department + Status
to see current status across a particular functional area.
Or:
Location + Status
to add today’s working context while exploring employees at different sites.
Depending on the person’s Planner information, the card may show statuses such as:
Working
Non-working day
Unknown
💡 Tip:
Your customised card layout is personal to your account, so you can add Status when it is useful without changing Organisation Explorer for other users.
Focus on one part of a large organisation
For a very large organisation, displaying everything at once may make the relationships harder to follow.
A useful approach is:
Select the Organisation view you need.
Use Classic layout.
Click Collapse all.
Expand only the groups or branches you want to investigate.
Use Search by name if you need to locate a particular person.
Zoom or use the minimap to position the area you want to examine.
You can then use Export > Visible area if you want to share only that part of the structure.
This is useful when discussing a particular team, department, location, or organisational branch without sharing an unnecessarily large chart.
🖊️ Note: If you are already viewing someone’s profile, use the Organisation Explorer dropdown to centre the explorer on that person’s hierarchy, job title, department, location or subcompany. This is useful when you want to move directly from an individual profile into the wider organisational context around them.
Combine views to investigate a question
You do not need to stay with one Organisation view.
Changing views lets you look at the same workforce from another perspective.
For example, if you are reviewing one business area, you could:
Start with Hierarchy to understand reporting relationships.
Switch to Department to understand functional grouping.
Switch to Location to understand where those people are based.
Switch to Job title to see how roles are distributed.
Use Show unassigned in each relevant view to identify missing assignments.
This can reveal structural differences that are difficult to see from a traditional organisation chart alone.
Example questions and useful combinations
What do you want to understand? | Organisation view | Layout | Useful card details |
Who reports to whom? | Hierarchy | Classic | Job title |
How is a manager’s structure arranged? | Hierarchy | Classic | Job title, Status |
Who holds each type of role? | Job title | Classic | Department, Location |
How are roles connected visually? | Job title | Wheel or Radial | Not applicable to Wheel or Radial layout |
Who belongs to each department? | Department | Classic | Job title, Location |
Where are people based? | Location | Classic | Department, Job title |
Which departments operate across different sites? | Department | Classic | Location |
Which roles exist at each site? | Location | Classic | Job title |
How is a multi-company workforce structured? | Subcompany | Classic | Department, Location |
Who is missing an organisational assignment? | Relevant view + Show unassigned | Classic | Relevant details |
Who is working today within a particular structure? | Hierarchy, Department, or Location | Classic | Status |
🖊️ Note:
These combinations are examples rather than fixed rules. You can switch Layouts and Organisation views at any time to find the perspective that works best for what you are investigating.
Summary
Organisation Explorer becomes most useful when you combine different ways of grouping and displaying your workforce.
Remember:
Organisation view determines what relationship or grouping you are exploring.
Layout determines how you see that structure.
Card details add the employee information that matters to you.
Show unassigned can help identify missing organisational assignments.
Classic is best when you need detailed cards and reporting-style structures.
Wheel and Radial provide alternative visual perspectives for exploring connections.
Switching between Organisation views can help you investigate the same workforce from several angles.
FAQs
Click here for answers to frequently asked questions
Click here for answers to frequently asked questions
Q: Which Organisation Explorer layout should I use to understand reporting lines?
A: To understand reporting lines in Organisation Explorer, use Hierarchy as the Organisation view and Classic as the layout. Classic shows connected employee cards and lets you expand or collapse individual reporting branches.
Q: Which Organisation Explorer view should I use to see everyone with the same job title?
A: To see everyone with the same job title in Organisation Explorer, select Job title as the Organisation view. Use Classic if you want detailed employee cards, or Wheel or Radial if you want a more visual representation of the relationships.
Q: How can Organisation Explorer help me understand where a team is located?
A: Organisation Explorer can help you understand where a team is located by combining a team-related view with Location information. For example, use Department as the Organisation view and add Location to Classic employee cards to see where members of each department are based.
Q: How can I see which departments are represented at each location using Organisation Explorer?
A: To see which departments are represented at each location, select Location as the Organisation view, use Classic layout, and add Department to your employee cards.
Q: How can I find people who do not have a department or location assigned using Organisation Explorer?
A: To find people who do not have a department or location assigned, select the relevant Organisation view and turn on Show unassigned. For example, use Department + Show unassigned to include people without an assigned department.
Q: Can Organisation Explorer show me who is working today?
A: Organisation Explorer can show you today’s working status in Classic layout by adding Status to your customised employee cards. This lets you see statuses such as Working or Non-working day alongside the organisational structure.
Q: Does Organisation Explorer analyse whether my management structure is effective?
A: No. Organisation Explorer does not automatically analyse whether your management structure is effective. It provides visual views of your organisational data that can help you spot patterns or structures you may want to review further.
Q: How can I focus on only one part of a large organisation using Organisation Explorer?
A: To focus on one part of a large organisation, use Collapse all in Classic layout and then expand only the branches you want to examine. You can also search for a person, zoom in, and use the minimap to position the relevant area.
Q: Why would I switch between different Organisation views when using Organisation Explorer?
A: You would switch between different Organisation views because each one answers a different organisational question. Hierarchy shows reporting relationships, while Department, Location, Job title, and Subcompany group the same workforce using different organisational information.
Q: Which is better in Organisation Explorer: Classic, Wheel, or Radial?
A: The best Organisation Explorer layout depends on what you are trying to understand. Classic is best for detailed employee cards and structured relationships, while Wheel and Radial are useful for visually exploring connections across larger or differently grouped structures.