Org Chart: A Live Read Instead of a Hand-Maintained Slide Deck
- Status
- 44 tests · built August–September 2026 · live, internal
- Stack
- Node.jsRippling API
Whole-company view — every top-level report, drawn live from the HR platform.
01 — The problem
Every reporting-line question meant opening a Slides deck maintained by hand. It was right on the day it was last touched and quietly wrong every day after, since managers change, people join, and people leave without a slide ever knowing.
02 — What it does
A plain Node server with zero npm dependencies reads the HR platform's worker API directly and renders the entire company as an interactive chart. Anyone can click a person to zoom into their team, or search by name, title, or department. It exports to print/PDF with one team per page.
03 — Design & technical approach
Sensitive fields — birthdate, compensation, personal email — never leave the server; the page itself only ever receives seven fields (name, title, department, start date, photo, manager, leave status). A background refresh warms the data on a timer so cold requests never wait on a live pull, which took response time from roughly 23 seconds down to about 0.02. Because it re-reads the source through the day, people who haven't started yet or who've already left drop off automatically — no manual maintenance required.
04 — Outcome & impact
Nothing about it needs maintaining — it re-reads the source through the day on its own, and people who haven't started yet or who've already left drop off automatically. A background refresh (data warmed on a timer, cold requests never wait on the live pull) took response time from about 23 seconds to about 0.02. Print/PDF export puts one team per page across the whole company. The Slides deck it replaced is retired.
Every screen, explained
A closer look at each part of the app, in the order you'd actually move through it.