Last week, we had a lovely poll on what are your favorite features of Excel? More than 120 people responded to it with various answers. So I did what any data analyst worth his salt would do,
- I downloaded all the 120+ comments data
- I home brewed a large cup of coffee and started gulping it.
- I started analyzing the comments
So here are the top 10 features in Excel according to you.
1. Excel Formulas
63 people (50%) said Formulas are their favorite feature in Excel. Of course, you can say, Formulas & Functions are Excel!!! . They are what Excel is made of. But then again, a surprising fact is very few people actually know how to use formulas. Most people would Excel as a glorified notepad or ledger – just to type data. Once you understand the power of formulas, then you can be an irresistible analyst. Your boss & colleagues will be all over you for insights & information, much like the girls in Axe commercials.
Resources to learn Excel formulas:
- Introduction to Excel formulas – video
- Top 10 formulas for aspiring analysts
- 51 everyday Excel formulas – explained
2. VBA, Macros & automation
55 people said VBA is what makes them use Excel. VBA stands for Visual Basic for Applications, is a special language that Excel speaks. If you learn this language, you can make Excel do crazy things for you, like generate and email monthly reports automatically while you are busy reading this article.
Macros, little VBA programs are what you write to achieve this. Learning VBA can be quite fun, challenging & extremely rewarding experience. Once you learn VBA, suddenly your company will find you invaluable, thanks to all the time & effort you will be saving due to automation.
Resources to learn VBA:
3. Pivot Tables
53 people said they love Pivot tables. They save you a ton of time, let you create complex reports, charts & calculations all with few clicks. No wonder so many people love them.
Pivot tables are ideal tools for managers & analysts who always have to answer questions like,
- What is the trend of sales in last 6 months?
- Who are our top 10 customers?
- Which button do I press for strong latte?
May be not the last one, but Pivot tables can answer almost any business question if you throw right data at them.
Resources to learn Pivot tables:
- Introduction to Pivot tables
- Top 5 Pivot table tricks & tips
- Pivot tables – detailed information, examples & tutorials
4. Lookup Formulas
25 people said lookup formulas (VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, INDEX, MATCH etc.) are their favorite feature of Excel. Lookup formulas help you locate any information in your workbooks based on input criteria. By knowing how to write lookup formulas, you can build dashboards, make interactive charts, create effective models & feel pretty darn awesome.
Resources to learn lookup formulas:
- What is VLOOKUP formula, how to use it?
- Comprehensive guide to Excel lookup formulas
- VLOOKUP quiz – how well do you know it?
5. Excel Charts
Excel charts help you communicate insights & information with ease. By choosing your charts wisely and formatting them cleanly, you can convey a lot. I guess, most people hate Excel charts (hence it is at 5th position), because they are hard to work with. You can loose a whole afternoon formatting the wedges of a pie chart. But thanks to resources like Chandoo.org, you know better to make a column / bar chart and be done in 5 minutes.
Resources to learn Excel charts:
- How to select right type of charts for your data
- Creating combination charts
- More charting principles & charting tutorials
6. Sorting & Filtering data
If Microsoft ever needs few extra billions of cash, they just have to turn sorting & filtering features in Excel to pay-per-use. These ad-hoc analysis features are so powerful & simple that any aspiring analyst must be fully aware of them.
Resources to learn sorting & filtering features:
- Filter by selected cell’s value & other cool tips
- Sorting pivot tables in anyway you want
- SUBTOTAL formula and using it with filters
- Introduction to Advanced filters
- More sorting tips | filtering tips
7. Conditional formatting
Conditional formatting is a hidden feature in Excel that can make your workbooks sexy. Just add some CF to highlight your data and you will turn boring into interesting. With new features like data bars, color scales & icon sets, conditional formatting is even more powerful.
Resources to learn conditional formatting:
- Introduction to conditional formatting
- Conditional formatting basics – Video
- Conditional formatting – top 5 tips
- More tips & tutorials on conditional formatting
8. Drop down validation & form controls
Right from my 3.5 years old daughter to CEO of a company, Everyone loves to be in control. So how can you make your workbooks interactive, so that end users can control the inputs ?
By using form controls & drop down lists of course.
Resources to learn dropdown lists, form controls:
- How to create an in-cell drop-down box for entering values?
- Introduction to Excel form controls
- Making your charts, workbooks & dashboards interactive – detailed guide
9. Excel Tables & Structural References
Excel tables, a new feature added in Excel 2007 is a very powerful way to structure, maintain & use tabular data – the bread and butter of any data analysis situation. With tables, you can add or remove data, set up structural references, connect them to external sources (SQL server, ODBC etc.), add them to data models (Excel 2013 onwards), link them to PowerPivot (Excel 2010 onwards), format automatically, filter & sort with ease and still be out of office before lunch break. It is a pity Microsoft did not call them pixie dust or magic mix.
Resources to learn Excel tables:
- Introduction to Excel tables
- Using Excel tables – Introduction video
- Using structural references – video
- More tips & tutorials on Excel tables
10. PowerPivot, Data Explorer & Data Analysis features
Although Excel in itself is quite powerful, it struggles to analyze certain types of data,
- Combining multiple tables and creating reports from them
- Processing data from difference sources and getting output to Excel
- What if analysis, scenarios & optimization
This is where add-ins like PowerPivot, Data Explorer and Analysis toolpak come in to picture. They let Excel do more, just like bat-mobile lets batman kick more ass.
Resources to learn more:
- Introduction to PowerPivot
- Introduction to DAX & PowerPivot measures
- Using Solver in Excel
- More on PowerPivot | data explorer
Learn all these features & more in one place
If you are looking to master all these top 10 features (and more) in one place, I highly recommend enrolling in my online classes. These training programs offer a step-by-step, in-depth, practical instruction on all areas of Excel, VBA, Dashboards & PowerPivot so that you can be awesome at your work. Click on below links to learn more.
- Excel, VBA & Dashboard training programs
- Excel & Dashboard training programs
- PowerPivot training program (next batch in July, 2013)
Or if you prefer face-to-face training & live in USA, you are in awesome luck. I am visiting USA this summer to conduct advanced excel & dashboards masterclasses in Chicago, New York, Washington DC & Columbus OH.
Click here for details & to book your spot.
35 Responses to “Quick and easy Gantt chart using Excel [templates]”
"Please share your experiences and ideas using comments"
For those willing to go VBA, XL can do far more w/Gantt Charts. Compare to PapaGantt. https://sites.google.com/site/beyondexcel/project-updates/papagantt-thebigdaddyofxlganttcharts
While making PapaGantt was neither quick nor easy, using PapaGantt is both, not just for displaying Gantts, but for scheduling tasks as well.
is it possible to get a xls(m) file ?
instead of a zip-file with .xml-files ?
i cannot open it with excel :/
Regards
Stef@n
@Stef@n
Try saving the file and then open from Excel as opposed to opening directly from the post
Also try this link: http://img.chandoo.org/pm/quick-gantt-chart-template.xlsx
Thanks very much for this workbook idea.
To slightly up-scale functionality I added:
1. conditional format for when the cell value =2 to be red which could be used for critical path or other activity highlighting needs (milestones perhaps)
2. conditional format for when the cell value =c to be green which could be used for showing activity progress
3. conditional format for the same range where formula =DATE(YEAR(D$5),MONTH(D$5),DAY(D$5))=TODAY() and set custom to ;;; and cell fill colour to a light blue. This will highlight today down the whole table to allow quick assessment of activity progress to plan. Anything not green upto where the date indicator is shows activity is behind the plan. Opposite for tasks ahead of the plan.
(There is probably a better way to get the same result but this works for now. If there is please post for us to share.)
Hope this made enough sense.
Also, thanks Craig for the link. I'll have a better look soon.
Regards,
Darren
Hey Chandoo,
I actually made one of these for a friend of mine but added an extra level of automation.
Rather than putting in 1 on all the dates the activity occurs, I added a column for start and end date of each project. Then I used formula along the lines of :
=IF(AND(DateAtTop >= Start Date, DateAtTop <= End Date),1,"")
Then used the same conditional formatting where 1 was coloured.
I thought this was a nice touch, especially if a project lasts for many days.
Let me know what you think 😉
Lucas
P.S. First time I've posted here, love your work btw!
Hi Lucas... welcome to the comments and thanks for your first of many comments.
I like the idea. In fact, it was one of the first Excel tricks I ever learned (to use conditional formatting to automate things like this). See this (written almost 6 years ago)
http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/03/13/want-to-be-an-excel-conditional-formatting-rock-star-read-this/
and scroll-down to the tip on gantt charts. 🙂
I liked this approach and tried adding it into the Conditional format via Formula = statement. It workd fine with just the AND statement but then I realised you need the "1"'s to calcluate the duration.
I then put the whole IF statemnt in but it hasnt worked. Any thoughts?
Ta
Hi Lucas and Darren,
I tried the conditional formatting but I really don't succeed in getting the solution. Do you have a template of this?
Thanks in advance
Br
[…] http://chandoo.org/wp/2014/02/18/quick-gantt-chart-excel-template/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_med… […]
[…] via Quick and easy Gantt chart using Excel [templates]. […]
Excellent, thanks for this tip and expample.
I had a monthly reporting template very similar to this, but was done in excel which needed more manual inputs.
I used your exmaple and updated my monthly group reporting plan.
I further devided the day into 4 quarters to make it easy for us to followup on different tasks.
Now, I just have to update the start date, and everything gets udpated by itself in fraction of a second.
Thanks once again. love your daily udpates.
Wow.. glad to hear that.
Hi Prahlad,
Can you share ur template even i am looking for similar kind of template .where i want day duration ,split in hrs and each task effort represented in hr spent by each resource .
Thanks
savi
Hi Chandoo,
Can you guide on preparing an indian version of the captioned sheet. We have saturdays working :-(, and only one day weekly off on sunday.
Regards-Prajay
Hi Chandoo,very useful post.i need gantt chart for inventory module.
[…] Quick and easy Gantt chart using Excel […]
Hi.
Really usefull post. I would like to know if i can also include weekends.
Thank you
Hi Chandoo, thank you for the great job, I was wondering if you can customize this sheet for Inventory planning purposes?!
thank you indeed
This was so helpful. ive been through about 10 different tutorial type things and this has to be the best so far, helped me out a great deal. and now my boss is happy i can make gantt charts!
thanks
This's a great post, thanks for sharing
Hi Chandoo,
Thanks for the excel tutorial. I wanted to make a simple modification, however it will cause issues with the duration part. I created another rule/cell marked 2. For my project I want to show a projected timeline and then an actual timeline. The issue is that the duration is being logged for when I enter 2, which I want to be projected and not actual. Will you please assist in letting me know how I can create a duration for both project and actual on the same line?
Thank you,
Steven
Showing vertical line between every week is very useful for me, I used to do it manually. Thanks so much!!
But how about, my gantt chart included Saturday & Sunday, and I want to show the vertical line after Sunday, could any expert teach me how to fix it. Thanks again.
This was so helpful - thank you! I had a bit of trouble with the end of the week conditional formatting over-writing the filled cells but switching the order of the rules sorted it out. Needed to put together a gantt chart quickly for an important bid at short notice and this was just the job - thanks for taking the time to post it. Much appreciated.
This is the first time I'm reading a tutorial that actually makes sense 🙂 This is absolutely great, with only one minor issue I can't seem to figure out on my own. How do I include weekends in (or instead of) the Workday formula? Thank you!
[…] This template I made myself but I inspired from Chandoo.org. […]
Hi,
Sometimes I must work at weekends - it is possible to modify the dates so that you can include Sat + Sun as well?
Thanks,
H
Nice gantt chart template chandoo, simple but useful
Thank you so much for this excellent guide! I have adapted this to show scheduled activities at multiple project sites weekly over the course of the year, including active and proposed work. With just a tiny bit of tweaking to your tutorial, I was able to create a chart that suited my needs perfectly!
Thank you very much for idea sharing .very innovative workday formula is showing 5 days but i want 6 days , is there any other option plz reply..
i got it friends..
=WORKDAY.INTL(F4,1,11)
hhhhhh
@Somnath
I also like the structure using =WORKDAY.INTL(F4,1,"0000001")
where each day is a 0 or 1
Hi thanks a lot for the tuto!! It helped me a lot!!
But can you tell me how can I add a vertical line representing today on it?
@Cynthia
Open the template
Select D7:DS26
Goto Conditional formatting
New Rule
Use a Formula
=D$5=today()
then set the format as a Red Right Hand Border only
Apply
Do not select stop here for the rule
Hi Chandoo,
I purchased your Project Management templates a month ago and have not had the chance to thank you for the great templates. Thank you!!!!! It has saved me a lot of time creating and re creating templates. Unfortunately, I had to do a lot of customization but it's not that bad. I am now in the process of customizing my GANTT which my boss thinks is too granular. He doesn't want to see a weekly grant. Only the months should be showing. I have researched and researched but to no avail. Do you have any examples I can look at?
Hi Chandoo,
thanks so much for all your tips on Gantt Table.
I'm actually building one at the moment and want to use the conditional formatting. However, I always get into trouble with that when I have to add new lines. I don't know the final size of my table yet and I eventually also want other people to be able to work with it.
Conditional formatting tends to "split up" into various "applies to" ranges when you insert a new row or copy and past values from somewhere.
I'm sure you've come across this issue already... So far I couldn't find a feasible solution to this. I was wondering if you had an idea / suggestion for me?
Thanks so much!!!
Nadine