Generate Genealogy View in ASP.NET C# using Google Organizational Chart

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Previously, I have shown you how to create a genealogy view of a family or a treeview in ASP.NET using C#. You can go through that link here. But that process was some kind of orthodox concept to show the data, because we have used a primary structure of HTML table and put a huge code of all the buttons, labels and images present in the HTML table.

But in this article, I will show you how to create a genealogy view of data coming from database with coding of just 20-25 lines. We will use Google organizer chart to create the tree view. Our only motive is to generate the parent and position (left & right) wise data presentation by fetching it from database.

So let's come to the database part first. I cut all other things except name and parent number. If only one child is present, it will show directly under the parent (neither in left nor in right) and two children will show to left and right according to their position in database. So you need to be careful to handle these kinds of small but very effective things when you will do yours.

I will first discuss about the Google organizational chart. Let's check how it works first. Here, I am just pasting the code which will generate the treeview. For more, visit this link.

<script>
google.setOnLoadCallback(drawChart);
function drawChart() {
     var data = new google.visualization.DataTable();
     data.addColumn('string', 'Name');
     data.addColumn('string', 'Manager');         
     data.addRows([['Mike',''], ['Jim', 'Mike'], 
     ['Alice', 'Mike'],['Bob','Jim'],['Carol', 'Jim']]); 
     var chart = new google.visualization.OrgChart(document.getElementById('chart_div'));
     chart.draw(data, { allowHtml: true });
}
</script>

This code is not similar to the code present in the website. I took only the things that will help me to do the primary things. Others can be added later.

All these codes are basically based on the data. Data pertaining to Mike, Jim, Alice, Bob, etc. So if we can replace it with our value, which is coming from database, then our work will be done. So first let's fetch the data from database and form a string like here.

string s = "";
DataTable table = new DataTable();
table.Columns.Add("name", typeof(string));
table.Columns.Add("parent", typeof(string));
table.Rows.Add("Mike", "");
table.Rows.Add("Jim", "Mike");
table.Rows.Add("Alice", "Mike");
table.Rows.Add("Carol", "Jim");

for (int i = 0; i < table.Rows.Count; i++)
{
     s = s + "['"+table.Rows[i][0].ToString()+"','"+
     table.Rows[i][1].ToString()+"'],";
}
 
s = s.TrimEnd(',');

I only took a DataTable and bind it some dummy data. You need to bind it with SQL to fetch it from DB.

Now our string "s" is ready to launch as a bunch of data to Google organizational chart. Now, how to add this data to JavaScript function to call it or pass it.

The way I did it here, call a JavaScript function which is created within code behind. Let's see how I did this.

String csname1 = "PopupScript";
Type cstype = this.GetType();
ClientScriptManager cs = Page.ClientScript;
if (!cs.IsStartupScriptRegistered(cstype, csname1))
{
     StringBuilder cstext1 = new StringBuilder();
     cstext1.Append("<script>");
     cstext1.Append("google.setOnLoadCallback(drawChart);");
     cstext1.Append("function drawChart() {");
     cstext1.Append("var data = new google.visualization.DataTable();");
     cstext1.Append("data.addColumn('string', 'Name'); 
     data.addColumn('string', 'Manager');");
     cstext1.Append("data.addRows(["+s+"]);");
     cstext1.Append("var chart = new google.visualization.OrgChart
     (document.getElementById('chart_div'));");
     cstext1.Append("chart.draw(data, { allowHtml: true });");
     cstext1.Append("}");
     cstext1.Append("</script>");
 
     cs.RegisterStartupScript(cstype, csname1, cstext1.ToString());
}

And one more thing, don't forget to add a "chart_div" in the ASPX page. It's the thing which is holding all the tree view.

Output

Download the whole source code here. CodeProject