Display OKR hierarchy
What this article covers
OKRsignal lets you model parent–child relationships between OKRs.
Examples:
- An annual company-level OKR connected to multi-year strategic OKRs as its parents (the longer horizon outcomes it contributes to) and annual department-level OKRs as its children (department specific contributions to the company-level OKR).
- A company-level OKR that is supported by department OKRs, which are in turn supported by team OKRs.
This article explains how to create and manage those links using the Hierarchy tab in the OKRsignal widget.
The Hierarchy view
When at least one hierarchy link exists, the Hierarchy tab in the widget shows a graph with three rows:
- Parents row — OKRs this one supports
- This OKR — the current widget, highlighted in the centre
- Children row — OKRs that support this one
Each node in the graph shows the OKR title, owner, and signal colour, and links directly to the dashboard that widget lives on.
How to create hierarchy links
Required permissions
You must be a member of the CXOsignal-OKR-Signal-Users group with edit access to create or modify hierarchy links. Viewing the Hierarchy tab is available to all users with dashboard access.
Open the widget and click the Hierarchy tab
Click Edit on the dashboard to enter edit mode, then hover over the OKRsignal widget and click the "..." menu and select Configure. In the widget's tab bar, click Hierarchy.
If no links exist yet, the tab shows empty parent and child areas with Edit Parents and Edit Children buttons.
Link a parent OKR
Click Edit Parents to open the parent search dialog. Type any part of the parent OKR's title to search across all OKRsignal widgets in your Azure DevOps organisation. Select the OKR you want to link this one to and click Save.
OKRsignal sends a pending link request to the target OKR. Until the owner of the target OKR accepts the request, the parent node appears with a grey overlay badge in your Hierarchy view, indicating the link is awaiting confirmation.
Link child OKRs
Click Edit Children to open the child search dialog. Search for and select the OKRs that support this one. As with parents, each link is sent as a pending request to the target OKR's owner.
OKRsignal prevents circular links — if adding an OKR as a child would create a cycle (A → B → A), the widget will block the link and show an error.
Accept incoming link requests
When another OKR sends a link request to yours, you will see a pending entry in your widget's Hierarchy tab. The pending node is shown with a grey badge.
To accept the link, click the pending node and confirm. Once accepted, the link becomes active — the node loses its grey badge, the graph updates on both sides, and the tab label shows the updated count: Hierarchy (N).
If you do not want to accept the link, you can dismiss the request from the same view.
Remove a hierarchy link
To remove a link, click Edit Parents or Edit Children, deselect the OKR you want to unlink, and click Save. The link is removed from both sides immediately — no confirmation is required from the other OKR's owner.
Hierarchy is configured
The Hierarchy tab now shows the full graph of parent and child OKRs. Viewers can navigate between linked OKRs by clicking any node in the graph, giving executives and OKR Owners a clear picture of how lower-level work supports higher-level outcomes.