Background

A little while ago, I worked on a project that would let me create a tree diagram, based on the contents of an Excel file.

I wanted to build the diagram using an Excel file that I already had.

The Excel file looked like this:

Parent node Child node
  Customer
Customer Customer ID
Customer Given name
Customer Surname
Customer Address
Address Street Number
Address Street Name
Address State
Address Suburb
Customer Account
Account Account ID
Account Account Type

Here is my resultant D3.js Tree Diagram:

(Click on the “Address” node, and watch the diagram collapse)

I wanted to use Excel because this made for easy collaboration with other users (technical and non-technical).

Once all the data had been entered into Excel, anybody on the team could run the script, and produce the resultant diagram.

Solution

After a bunch of Googling (and visits to Stack Overflow), I finally cobbled together a quick VB script (inspired by Mike Bostok) that would accept my file and then output the necessary html and javascript.

Feel free to try it out yourself:

Interactive CSV to Tree Diagram conversion workflow showing Excel/CSV input transforming into beautiful D3.js visualizations
Complete workflow: CSV data → Cross-platform processing → Interactive tree visualizations