Turn the client's existing chart into a structure

The client, or the other side, has sent their group chart: a slide from last year's board pack, a sheet from the finance team, a page in a PDF or a photo of a whiteboard. You need it in the matter as a chart you can change, not a picture you have to redraw. Structure reads the file and rebuilds the chart as elements and lines, in your firm's style.

What decides the route is the format of the file. A PowerPoint slide carries real shapes and connectors, which are read as they are. A PDF or an image is only a picture, so the AI reads the chart off it, and you check the result more closely.

Open the structure in the matter first, on the slide where the chart should go. If there is no structure yet, see draw the group structure chart.

Choose the file

1. Open Import and click PowerPoint, Excel, Image or PDF. In the Modern layout, click Import structure in the toolbar on the left and choose the format there.

   

2. Drop the file in the box, or click it to choose the file.

You can also drag a PowerPoint or PDF file straight onto the canvas. The same dialog opens; choose Build from PowerPoint or Build a structure at the top. An image dropped on the canvas is placed as a picture; to rebuild it as a chart, use Import and Image instead.

From a PowerPoint slide

1. In the dialog, Build from PowerPoint is open with your deck listed. Shapes and connectors are read straight from the slides.

   

2. Click the build button. The structure is built in the background and lands on your current slide.

3. Where a shape or a line does not match one of your firm's elements or relationships, Match remaining Building Blocks opens. For each one, click Choose Element or Choose Relationship and pick the firm's equivalent, so a box drawn as a company becomes your company element. Click Save.

   

From a PDF, a scan or a photo

1. In the dialog, Build a structure is open. Under Which chart should it read?, the charts found in your files are shown, and the likely ones are ticked. Tick the charts to rebuild and untick the rest, such as a logo or a signature block.

   

2. If the chart is not found, click Show all pages and tick the page it is on.

3. In Anything the builder should know?, tell the builder what to watch for, for example "use full legal names" or "ignore the dormant entities".

4. Choose the look. Transfer style from drawing keeps the original colours. Turn it off and the chart takes your organisation's styling, which is what you want for anything that goes out under the firm's name.

   

5. Click the build button. The charts are built in the background, and each one lands on its own slide. While they build, each slide's card in the slides pane shows its progress, or Failed if a chart could not be read.

From an Excel list

1. Under Import, click Excel, then Download template.

   

2. Fill in the template with the group's entities and holdings, keeping its columns as they are.

3. Drop the filled-in file under Upload your Excel template here and click Import.

Check the result

1. Go through the chart against the source, entity by entity: names, countries, and every percentage on every line. A rebuilt chart is a first draft, especially from a photo or a poor scan.

2. Correct in place: select an element or a line and change its name, type or value. See draw the group structure chart.

Tips from practice

• Straight and legible reads best. A clean PDF reads better than a scan, and a scan better than a photo taken at an angle. Ask the client for the original file if they have it.
• Keep the source. Save the file you rebuilt from in the matter's documents, so anyone can check the chart against it later: see keep the matter's documents in order.
• Say whose chart it is. Until you have checked it, note in the structure's Description that it is rebuilt from the client's chart, so no one sends it on as the firm's own.

Next, tidy up the chart before it goes out. If the chart comes with a step plan, see adapt a step paper from a precedent.