Christmas & New year have a special place in our hearts. Around our household, we have the official festive season from September last week to February 2nd week. In these 5 odd months, we celebrate all our birthdays, our marriage anniversary, a lot of fun festivals, not to mention Christmas & New Year. This year, it is even more special because we have 2 noisy, hilarious & rowdy kids to share and multiply our joy.
We wish you a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year.
I also want to tell you that how much thankful I am to you. Without you, I wouldn’t be spending this holiday season with my family. Because you find me useful, and support me thru your visits, purchases, comments & enthusiasm to learn that I have the courage to leave my day job to embark on this exciting journey called chandoo.org. Thank you.
About this year’s Christmas Card:
If you have ever tried to photograph a child, you know how difficult it is to capture the perfect moment. Now imagine capturing the perfect moment for twins. After numerous attempts to get a perfect family photo where all 4 of us are smiling, we gave up. Instead, this year, we picked the most-un-synchronized photo. None of us gave a good pose, and yet, we are happier than ever. 🙂
A Special Holiday Gift for you
Holiday Posting Schedule at Chandoo.org
This holidays I will be blogging little. I mention the schedule of posts from now thru New Year 2011 below so you can enjoy your holiday instead of worrying what you will miss.
- 24 Dec – no post
- 25 Dec – no post
- 26 Dec – no post
- 27 Dec – no post
- 28 Dec – Round up Christmas & New Year Spreadsheets for you
- 29 Dec – People & Blogs that helped in Year 2010 – Thank you Message
- 30 Dec – Best of Chandoo.org – the Awesomest Excel Stuff in Year 2010
- 31 Dec – no post
- 3 Jan – Excel Links – Happy New Year Edition
Forums:
Chandoo.org Excel Forums will continue to operate during holidays. I will not be participating much in discussions though, but I will check new posts once a day and try to provide quick answer if I can. Don’t blame me if I sound too cheerful in the reply to your pressing-problem-that-must-be-solved-RIGHT-NOW!.
Online Store:
Our online store will be open all through out. Go ahead and purchase something if you need. Your product deliveries are automatic. Please call me on +91 814 262 1090 or +1 206 792 9480 if you have some questions. Pay no attention to noisy kids in the background if you do call.
Email:
I will try to clear my inbox once a day during holidays. If you do not see a reply even after New Year, be kind and send me a reminder. I promise to send good thoughts your way along with reply 🙂
Once again we wish you a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2011.
PS: Make sure you sign-up for our Free Newsletter or add RSS Feeds to your news-reader so that you get new posts & tips as they go live.
13 Responses to “Gantt Box Chart Tutorial & Template – Download and Try today”
Hi Chandoo
As one of your students I have followed your detailed example through with great success. However, Excel is acting in an unexpected way and I wonder if you could take a look?
http://cid-95d070c79aef808e.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Gantt%20Box%20Chart.xlsm
On my version, I have to type 40239 (Which equates to 2 Mar 2010) to get the chart to display 31 May 2010 (which should be 40329)!!??
Have I done something wrong or is Excel acting up?
Thx
Oli
PS Your example file in 2007 displays correctly.
Hi,
I like this idea a lot, but I agree the name is a little drab.
As an American I may just be seeing things, but to me the combination of lines and bars on your chart looks like a bunch of cricket bats.
Maybe you could work that into a catchier name. 🙂
Cheers!
Here is some code I use to keep the axis synched.
It may be useful to some of your readers
It is based on a comment I saw on Daily Dose of Excel.
Function SynchGanttAxis(Cname, lower, upper)
'Sets the X min and X max for Category axis
Application.Volatile
On Error Resume Next
'
'Top Horizontal Axis
With ActiveSheet.Shapes(Cname).Chart.Axes(xlCategory, 1)
.MinimumScale = lower
.MaximumScale = upper
End With
'Bottom Horizontal Axis
With ActiveSheet.Shapes(Cname).Chart.Axes(xlValue, 2)
.MinimumScale = lower
.MaximumScale = upper
End With
End Function
Function SynchVerticalAxis(Cname, lower, upper)
Application.Volatile
On Error Resume Next
' Excel 2007 only
'Right hand vertical axis
With ActiveSheet.Shapes(Cname).Chart.Axes(xlValue, 1)
.MinimumScale = 0
.MaximumScale = upper
End With
End Function
@Oli.. Can you check your file again.. I see 40329...
@Dave: Even I saw things.. the bars actually looked like lollipops. How about calling this lollipop chart - now that would be yummy and goes along the tradition of naming charts after eatables (bar, pie, donut...)
@Bob: Superb stuff... thanks for sharing 🙂
Hi Chandoo
This looks really good and I think it can also be applied to show project phases / milestones.
Question: Thinking further could this be amended to display a project lifecycle (Idea through to Implementation say 7 phases) on one bar / row? Just imagine 20 projects within a programme all on one chart one bar each showing their respective lifecycle stages i.e. on one page.
Idea: As the Gantt Box Chart this is quite intensive to set up re formatting etc how about the added extra of once you have completed this to "Save as template" i.e. saves the formatting and layout of the chart as a template so you can apply to future charts. Simple to do and will save the time formatting etc again and again and again.
Therefore tip: Click on your chart demo and then click on Save As template icon (2007) - edit file name and click on save. Ready to use / apply via Templates in Change Chart Type window.
Thanks and be very interested if the lifecycle question can be resolved
Mike
How embarrassing.
I was obviously suffering from numerical dyslexia. I was one of those days.
@Mike H: You can easily make this chart to work like a generic project lifecycle plan chart. All you have to do is,
1. in a separate sheet define the steps of lifecycle and various dates in a table (with 5 columns for each of the projects you have).
2. now use a control cell to input the project name you want to show in the chart
3. based on the input, use OFFSET Formulas to get the correct data
4. Rest is same as the tutorial above
For more info on the dynamic charting visit http://chandoo.org/wp/tag/dynamic-charts/ and http://chandoo.org/wp?s=OFFSET
Your solution is really smart but in the en Excel isn't meant to do stuff like this. I, as a former PM, always thought is was frustrating that you had to do stuff like this for something simple like a Gantt chart. So I built Tom's Planner. And would like to plug it here. I think it really solves the problem you are trying to solve in the most efficient way. Check out http://www.tomsplanner.com for a free account or play around with the demo.
Hi there,
Chandoo - this is really a very nice and helpfull chart - I adopted it, so I can report a forecast or the delay of a certain task (coming from my role as an auditor for projects).
One topic I´m currently struggeling with: I do have a project lasting for lets say 12 month. For a management reporting, I want to have kind of snapshot, lets say one month back and 2 month in the future. I tried with the offset formula, but failed. Any idea?
Thx
Lopi
[...] Ein viel geliebter Klassiker ist die Erstellung von GANTT-Diagrammen mit Excel. Wir hatten das Thema wiederholt schon hier. Chandoo.org hat sich mal wieder mit einer neuen Variante hervorgetan: Das GANTT-Box-Chart. [...]
[...] [...]
Hi Chandoo - fantastic xls. One thing I can't figure out how to do is adjust the alignment of the vertical axis. I would like to left align so that I could indent to represent sub tasks. Can that be done? Or is there a better way?
I've been trying to work out if there's a way to show weekends on the graph. The closest thing I've got is to add them on a secondary axis, but then I haven't been able to keep both axis lined up together! Any ideas?
Following on from this - is it possible to show things like holidays?