Technical Documentation - Family Tree Chart
Family Tree Visual — Support & Help
Thank you for your interest in the Family Tree Chart by WorkforceVision Ltd.
For any issues or assistance, please contact us via email:
IraWatt@WorkforceVision.co.uk
Product Description
The Family Tree Visual is an interactive Power BI custom visual designed to make exploring relationships across generations simple and engaging.
It allows users to create and navigate family trees (genealogy charts) directly within Power BI.
Ideal Use Cases
- Historical Research: Museums or history departments visualizing the lineage of kings, queens, and dynasties.
- Genealogical Studies: Individuals or genealogists mapping family and friend networks.
- Education and Science: Visualizing genetic inheritance or kinship structures in biology or anthropology.
With features such as interactive zooming and click-through navigation, the visual provides a clear and intuitive way to understand complex relationships, making it an excellent tool for storytelling, research, and education.
Data Requirements
To ensure your data loads correctly, please follow these rules:
- All fields must be in text format, even if they contain numbers.
-
Each node in the tree must have its own row.
- For example, if node A has child B, then B must also appear as a separate row.
- The ID field must always be populated.
- When listing Spouse IDs or Children IDs, separate each ID with a comma.
An example data table is included in the Power BI report for reference.
Interactivity and Functionality
- When opening the visual, the first row in your dataset will be the node in focus.
-
Selecting a node displays:
- Its parents and grandparents
- Its spouses and children, and their children
- Clicking another node re-centres the chart on that node.
- Selecting a node can also filter other visuals in your report, based on that node’s data row.
You can toggle this interactive filtering on or off in Power BI:
Modeling → Manage Relationships
Building the Visual
The Family Tree Visual includes the following fields:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| ID | Unique identifier for each node (text). Must be unique. |
| Name | The name of the person or entity (text). |
| Mother ID | The ID of the node’s mother (text). |
| Father ID | The ID of the node’s father (text). |
| Spouses ID | One or more spouse IDs, separated by commas. |
| Children ID | One or more child IDs, separated by commas. |
| Image | Base64-encoded image string (up to 32,766 characters). See how to create 64bit text from an image file or folder and how to compress image text to meet Power BI size requirements . |
| Colour |
Optional hex code (for example, #FF5733) or colour name
for the node’s top band. Defaults to grey.
|
For more details on colour codes, visit W3Schools Colors HEX .
Each row in your data table corresponds to one node in the visual.