Use a wizard to create a Gantt Chart

Build timelines in PowerPoint or online. It is common to present project plans, proposals and project reviews to clients and executives in PowerPoint. In this tutorial I will show you how to prepare your Microsoft Project Gantt chart and how to export it to PowerPoint. If you wish to learn how to make a timeline in MS Project, please see our step by step guide here. Microsoft Project , , and are all strong project planning tools but each produces complex Gantt charts that are difficult for audiences to follow.

In this tutorial I demonstrate two options for preparing project plans as PowerPoint presentations. Presentations to clients and executive need to be simple and easy to understand. If the Gantt Chart Wizard is hidden in Microsoft Project you will need to add it to the ribbon by following these steps.

This adds a new section to that tab of your Microsoft Project ribbon. The new section will be listed as New Group Custom. I called mine Visual Tools. In the column on the right highlight the new group you created in step C I named mine Visuals Tools. Click OK to exit.

Click on the Gantt Chart Wizard button and the first styling option you get is to select what type of Gantt information you want to display. For client and executive presentations keep project visuals simple to understand by displaying only Standard information. The second step of the Gantt Chart Wizard allows you to select text you want to display alongside your tasks bars.

To keep my Gantt chart uncomplicated I selected Dates. Further down in this Microsoft Project tutorial I show you how to add additional information to any task. The final step of the Gantt Chart Wizard is to select whether you want to display links between dependent tasks. I opted not to show these links in an effort to keep my MS Project Gantt chart as easy to read as possible. From the Format tab, drop down the Format control to change the appearance of your tasks.

Here you can add and rearrange important elements to your MS Project Gantt chart. Now you need to create an image you can paste into PowerPoint. Microsoft Project has a feature called the Copy Picture tool which allows you to choose which tasks you want to show in your visual. This is useful for paring down project tasks to the ones that are critical for your presentation.

In the example below I selected all my Summary Tasks rows. On the Task tab drop down the Copy button to find the Copy Picture control. Set your timescale and click OK. Browse to your GIF and right click to open it with an editing tool like Paint, or click on it to open it in a browser. Copy your image with a snipping tool or cropping tool and paste it onto your PowerPoint slide. The Project tutorial demonstrated how to format your Microsoft Office Gantt chart into a presentable image and how to paste it into PowerPoint as a static visual.

Read the section below to learn how to import your. PowerPoint is a visual application and better suited for creating the type of visuals client and executive expect. Office Timeline is a PowerPoint add-in that imports data directly from Microsoft Project and transforms it into rich visual Gantt charts instantly. Since these charts are a native PowerPoint slides, they can be opened, shared, presented, updated or edited by anyone who has PowerPoint.

You will need to install Office Timeline Basic , which will add a timeline maker tab to the PowerPoint ribbon image below. Click on Microsoft Project in the Import wizard and select the mpp file you wish to load. Now, from the. You can choose to display some or all of the imported items. Mine looked like this and it took less than a minute to make. Click the Sync button on the Office Timeline ribbon to update your Gantt whenever the data changes in your Project file.

The sync wizard will identify any changes to the mpp file. Select the changes you want to accept and click Finish to update your Microsoft Office Gantt chart. Your slide can be updated in real-time. Below, I synchronized my Gantt chart with its linked MS Project file to add tasks and milestones, and then I made some styling changes – for example, changing colors, shapes, and text positions, and switching the timescale from months to weeks. All of this was instantly done using the Style Pane.

Large-scale PowerPoint clinical trial roadmap template featuring color-coded elements to highlight the main phases necessary for a drug or procedure to receive FDA approval.

Swimlane timeline template that outlines the major components of business continuity management in order to guide professionals in their risk-mitigation efforts. Swimlane diagram example that includes diverse milestones and tasks to mark distinct phases and major events for managing technological updates in your organization. Color-coded swimlane sample for showcasing the journey of a product with smartly grouped milestones and tasks, which reduces clutter and eliminates overlapping.

Simple Gantt chart diagram with well-defined tasks and milestones that help you clearly outline any project schedule. Simple yet professionally-designed project template focusing on major milestones and due dates for you to be able to create easy-to-follow, high-level project timelines for proposals, campaigns, status reports and reviews.

A visual template highlighting project key tasks and milestones so that you can present just the right amount of detail to both project and non-project audiences. Free PowerPoint Gantt chart example that gives a high-level snapshot of a project and communicates its essential aspects on a single slide.

Login Products Office Timeline Add-in. Download Free Edition. Office Timeline Online. Make Timelines Online. See premium version Free Online timeline maker See tutorials.

Need Swimlanes for your project? Get Swimlanes. Free templates Build timelines in PowerPoint or online. Gantt Chart Templates. Timeline Templates. Align programs and projects on one slide with multi-level Swimlanes. Play Video. Download Office Timeline Free. Microsoft Tutorial Template. See our free Gantt chart template collection. Get template.

Present your data in a Gantt chart in Excel – Join or Sign In

Build timelines in PowerPoint or online. Play Video. Microsoft Excel has a Bar chart feature that can be formatted to make an Excel Gantt chart. If you need to create and update a Gantt chart for recurring communications to clients and executives, it may be simpler and faster to create it in PowerPoint.

On this page you can see both ways. I will give you step-by-step instructions for making a Gantt chart in Excel by starting with a Bar chart. I will also show you how to instantly create an executive Gantt chart in PowerPoint by pasting or importing data from an. If you wish to learn how to make a timeline in Excel, please see our timeline tutorial here. Break down the entire project into chunks of work, or phases.

These will be called project tasks and they form the basis of your Gantt chart. In Excel , , or , enter your data by listing the Start Date and Finish Date of each task, and also it’s Duration count of days required to complete that task. Also include a brief description of the task.

Make sure to sort these tasks in order, by placing the earliest start date first and the latest start date last. From the same worksheet that your Excel table is on, click in any blank cell. In the Charts section of the ribbon, drop down the Bar Chart selection menu. Click on the Add button to bring up Excel’s Edit Series window and here you will begin adding Task data to your Gantt chart.

First we need to name the data Series we will be entering. Click and place your cursor in the empty field under the title Series name , then click on the column header that reads Start Date in your table.

Staying in the Edit Series window move down to Series value. This is where you will enter your Task start dates. It is easy to do. To the right of the Series values field you will see an icon which looks like a spreadsheet with a red arrow on it.

Click on it the one by Series values and Excel will open a smaller Edit Series window. Now simply click the first start date in your task table and drag your mouse down to the last start date.

This highlights all of the start dates for your tasks and inputs them into your Gantt chart. Make sure you have not mistakenly highlighted the header or any extra cells. When finished, click on the small spreadsheet icon again the one with the red arrow which will return you to the previous window called Edit Series.

Click OK. Your Gantt should now look like this:. In the Edit Series window, click in the empty field under the title Series Name , then click in your Task table again, on the column header that reads Duration. Staying in the Edit Series window move down to Series value and click on spreadsheet icon with a red arrow on it again. Select your Duration data by clicking on the first Duration in your project table and drag your mouse down to the last duration so all durations are now highlighted.

To exit, once again click on the small spreadsheet icon with the red arrow to which will return you to the previous window. Click OK again to build your Gantt chart which should now look something like this:.

Right-click on one of the blue bars in the Gantt chart, then click on Select Data again to bring up the Select Data Source window. Select the Edit button to bring up a smaller Axis Label windows. Again, click on the small spreadsheet icon. Be careful not to include the name of the column itself. When you are done, exit this window by clicking on the small spreadsheet icon again. Your chart should now look something like this:.

You have really built a Stacked bar chart. Now we need to format it so it looks like a Gantt chart. To do that, we must make the blue parts of each task bar transparent so only the orange parts will be visible. These will become the tasks of your Gantt chart. To select all of the tasks bars at once, click on the blue part of any bar in your Gantt chart, then right-click and select Format Data Series , which will bring up the Format Data Series window in Excel.

Don’t close the Format Data Series task pane because we’re going to use it in the next step. You probably also see that the tasks on your Gantt chart are listed in reverse order with the last task on top of the Gantt chart and the first Task listed at the bottom.

This is easy to change in Excel. To do so click on the list of tasks along the vertical axis of your Gantt chart. This will select them all and it will also open the Format Axis task pane. In the Format Axis task pane under the header Axis Options and the sub-header Axis Position put a check into the checkbox called Categories in reverse order.

You will notice that Excel arranged your tasks into proper order, listing them from first to last on your Gantt chart. You will also notice that Excel moved the date markers from beneath to the top of the Gantt chart. Now it is really starting to look more like a Gantt chart should.

Removing some of the blank white space where the blue bars used to be will bring your tasks a little closer to the vertical axis of your Gantt chart. To remove some of the blank white space in the chart, click on the dates above the task bars. One click should select all the dates, then right click and select Format Axis to bring up Excel’s Axis Options window.

In the Axis Options window, under the header called Bounds, note the current number for Minimum Bounds. It represents the left most boundary of your Gantt chart. Changing this number by making it larger will bring your tasks closer to the vertical axis of your Gantt chart.

In my case I changed the original number which was At any time you can hit the reset button to return the original settings. This gives you the opportunity to try a number of different settings until you find the one the makes your Gantt chart look best. In the same Axis Options window under the header Units, you can adjustment the spacing between each of the dates listed at the top of the horizontal Axis. If you increase the unit number your Gantt chart will enlarge the space between each date, which will also lessen the number of dates your Gantt chart shows.

Doing the opposite, reduces the space between each date and therefore crowds more dates onto your Gantt chart. In my case I changed the original number from 20 to Under the Series Options header you will find the Gap Width control. Sliding it up or down will increase or reduce the size of your Task bars on your Gantt chart.

Play around until you find something that best works for you. PowerPoint is graphical and a better choice for making Gantt charts that will be used in client and executive communications.

Office Timeline is a PowerPoint add-in that makes and updates Gantt charts by importing or pasting from Excel. You can copy-paste , import and synchronize your Excel tables in PowerPoint. This will open a gallery that will allow you to choose a style or template for your Gantt chart. From the gallery, double-click any template or style to select it and then click Use Template in the preview window to open the Data Entry Wizard. In this demonstration, I will be using a custom template.

You can copy them all at once, but be sure not to copy the title. Then, make any edits you wish change colors or shapes, add or remove items, etc. Depending on the style or template selected, you will have a Gantt chart that looks like this:.

From here, you can easily customize the Gantt chart further , adding milestones, formatting fonts and colors, and adding various details like percent complete or notes.

It is easy to do in Office Timeline. In my example, I used Office Timeline Basic to add milestones, move task titles and date texts, change shapes, and add percent complete. Large-scale PowerPoint clinical trial roadmap template featuring color-coded elements to highlight the main phases necessary for a drug or procedure to receive FDA approval. Swimlane timeline template that outlines the major components of business continuity management in order to guide professionals in their risk-mitigation efforts.

Swimlane diagram example that includes diverse milestones and tasks to mark distinct phases and major events for managing technological updates in your organization. Color-coded swimlane sample for showcasing the journey of a product with smartly grouped milestones and tasks, which reduces clutter and eliminates overlapping. Simple Gantt chart diagram with well-defined tasks and milestones that help you clearly outline any project schedule. Simple yet professionally-designed project template focusing on major milestones and due dates for you to be able to create easy-to-follow, high-level project timelines for proposals, campaigns, status reports and reviews.

A visual template highlighting project key tasks and milestones so that you can present just the right amount of detail to both project and non-project audiences. Free PowerPoint Gantt chart example that gives a high-level snapshot of a project and communicates its essential aspects on a single slide.

Login Products Office Timeline Add-in. Download Free Edition. Office Timeline Online. Make Timelines Online. See premium version Free Online timeline maker See tutorials. Need Swimlanes for your project? Get Swimlanes. Free templates Build timelines in PowerPoint or online.

Gantt Chart Templates.

Microsoft Project Gantt Chart Ttutorial + Template + Export to PowerPoint.

Simple yet professionally-designed project template focusing on major milestones and due dates for you to be able to create easy-to-follow, high-level project timelines for proposals, campaigns, status reports and reviews. A visual template highlighting project key tasks and milestones so that you can present just the right amount of detail to both project and non-project audiences. Login Products Office Timeline Add-in. Download Free Edition. Office Timeline Online. Make Timelines Online.

See premium version Free Online timeline maker See tutorials. Showing your project to executives? Free templates Build timelines in PowerPoint or online. Gantt Chart Templates. Timeline Templates. Align programs and projects on one slide with multi-level Swimlanes. Play Video. Download Office Timeline Free. Make a regular Gantt chart in Microsoft Project. Fortunately, there are a few options available: Manually adjusting the timescale on your graph; Fitting the timescale to End of Page ; Scaling the entire project; Importing the MS Project data into Office Timeline and allowing the add-in to adjust the timescale automatically based on the dates of the tasks.

How can you display a timeline and Gantt chart in MS Project? Clear instructions. Easy to follow. No jargon. Pictures helped. Didn’t match my screen. Incorrect instructions. Yes No. Thank you! Any more feedback? The more you tell us the more we can help. Can you help us improve? Resolved my issue. Clear instructions.

Easy to follow. No jargon. Pictures helped. Didn’t match my screen. Also note that it is possible multiple people resources might be using one equipment resource, or one equipment might be accomplishing multiple tasks. Cost resources do not use pay rates. Remember cost per use and cost resources are two different things. Cost resources are financial cost associated with a task, like travel expenses, food expenses, etc.

The cost value of cost resource is only assigned when you assign cost resource to a task. MS Project will not automatically apply overtime calculations. Click the cell directly below Resource Name heading column to create Resources. Click the Std. Rate field for each resource to costs in hourly default , daily, weekly, monthly and yearly rates.

In the following example, the resource Rasmus is left at zero. Click the Ovt. Rate field to enter overtime rates. Double-click the Resource, a Resource Information dialog box opens. Click on Notes tab. Hovering over it will make the note appear. Set Up Cost Resources You can use a cost resource to represent a financial cost associated with a task in a plan. Examples of cost resources are travel, food, entertainment and training.

So it is obvious that cost resources do no work on a task and do not affect scheduling of a task. Cost value of the cost resource is entered when assigning it to a task. Click the empty cell in the Resource Name column. Type Training and press the Tab Key. In the Type field, click the down arrow to select Cost. MS Project — Assign Resources to Task MS Project Once the task and resource list are complete, resources need to be assigned to tasks in order to work on them.

With MS Project you can track task progress, resource and tasks costs. Click the box below the Resource Name column for the task you need the resource to be assigned. From the dropdown, choose the resource name. In the following screenshot as an example. You can also select multiple resources to work on a single task.

Now click the Assign button. Double-click the Task Name. Click the Resources tab. Click the cell below the Resource Name column. Select the resource from the dropdown list. The window is split in two, Gantt Chart view and Task Form view below it. In the Task Form view, click under the Resource Name column and select the resource. We can also assign other material resources to the same task. In the Gantt Chart view, you can also look at the project summary task, to note the duration, start and finish dates of the plan.

In the following example, Assign Resources is the project summary task identified as Task 0. MS Project — Track Progress MS Project Once your project plan is ready in MS Project, it becomes essential for a project manager to measure the actuals in terms of work completed, resources used and costs incurred and to revise and change information about tasks and resources due to any changes to the plans. A Project Manager should not assume that everything is progressing according to plan and should always keep track of each task.

Resistance to formal tracking of project management data is normal. You can overcome resistance to tracking by explaining your expectations, explaining the benefits of tracking, and training people to track the task themselves. Save a Baseline To evaluate project performance you need to create a baseline against which you will compare the progress. One needs to save the baseline, once a plan is fully developed. Of course, due to rolling wave planning or progressive elaboration needed to manage projects one can always add new tasks, resources, constraints and costs to the plan.

Also note, it makes sense to save the baseline before entering any actual values such as percentage of task completion. These multiple baselines seem contrary to the definition of baseline. You want to develop separate baseline plans for risk response and recovery. You will see Baseline Gantt bars displayed together with the current Gantt bars.

Update the Baseline for the Entire Project This simply replaces the original baseline values with the currently scheduled values. Update the Baseline for Selected Tasks This does not affect the baseline values for other tasks or resource baseline values in the plan.

Save Multiple Baselines You can save up to 11 baselines in a single plan. The first one is called Baseline, and the rest are Baseline 1 through Baseline It can be used as a project marker. It is visually easy to see how off-track or on-track the project progress is. Because it only specifies dates, it is simple, clear and easy information. But sometimes this approach might be fine when the actual work and cost values generated are close enough to your baseline schedule. Select the current date.

Check marks will appear in the indicators column for tasks that have been completed. On the right in the Chart portion, progress bars are generated in the Gantt bars of each task. This table includes Work Scheduled work , Actual, and Remaining columns. Click on Task you want to update. For this task, initial scheduled Work was 16 hours, because 24 hours is greater. In the example, a Baseline is saved, because the Baseline does not change and is used as a comparison.

Note: Actual work is rolled up and also reflects on the summary task. Change Start or Finish field in Actual group. You can fill Actual duration field as well. One does not have to finish collecting survey responses before starting the tabulation. Click the box under the Type column and choose the relationship according to your requirement. Under Lag heading column, enter the lag in terms of hours, days, weeks, or years. You can also apply lag or lead as a percentage.

As Soon As Possible means the task starts as soon as the project starts, if there are no dependencies that would delay it. So, no fixed start or end dates are imposed by this constraint type, but of course predecessor and successor dependencies are maintained. Default constraint when you schedule from the project finish date. Do not enter a Flexible task start or finish date with this constraint. As Soon As Task is scheduled to begin as early as possible.

Do not enter a start or finish date with this constraint. Start No Earlier Task is scheduled to start on or after a specified date. Must Finish On Task is scheduled to finish on a specified date.

Yes No. Thank you! Any more feedback? The more you tell us the more we can help. Can you help us improve? Resolved my issue. Clear instructions. Easy to follow. No jargon.