Gantt charts are a very popular way to visually depict project plans. Today, let us learn how to use Excel to make quick & easy Project Plan Gantt Chart.
This is what we will be creating,
Step 1: Set up project plan grid
First step is simple.
In a blank worksheet, set up an empty grid like this:
Key things to note:
- Project start date goes in to cell C3
- Project dates appear from cell D5 & D6 onwards, one day per column.
- Make the grid as big as you want. I choose 20 activities x 120 days.
Step 2: Fill up dates
Now, lets load the dates in to the plan. The first day of the project is known (it is in cell C3.)
- Select D5 and point it to C3 by typing =C3
- Set D6 to the same value as D5 by typing = D6
- Now, both D5 & D6 contain the same date. (Why 2 dates? You will understand in a minute!)
- In next column (E), we want the next working day.
- So in E5 type =WORKDAY(D5, 1)
- Now, select D5:E5, format them so only DAY portion of date is shown. To do this, press CTRL+1 after selecting them, in Number tab, select Custom and type d, click ok.
- Select D6, format it so only the first letter of the month is shown instead of entire date. To do this, set number format code as MMMMM.
- Drag E5 sideways for all the dates.
- Drag D6 sideways for all the dates.
- Our dates are ready!
Here is a demo of all the steps:
Step 3: Enter project plan data
Now that our grid is ready, enter the data. This is simple. Just type 1 whenever an activity is happening on a date. For example, if Activity 1 happens on 18th & 19th of February, type 1 in both cells.
Step 4: Calculating Duration
This is really simple. In the duration column, select first cell and type =COUNT(D7:DS7)
Note: Make sure you change the cell references based on the number of columns and where your data is!
Drag down the formula to get duration for all activities.
Step 5: Apply conditional formatting
Now that all the plan data is ready, lets tell Excel to highlight all 1’s so that we get a Gantt chart. Quick & Easy!
- Select the entire grid (excluding activity names, durations & dates)
- Go to Home > Conditional formatting > New rule (Related: Introduction to conditional formatting)
- Specify a rule to fill color in all cells with 1.
- Also, set cell formatting to ;;; so that the contents (ie 1s) are not visible. (Related: Making cell contents invisible)
- See the conditional formatting rule I have used below:
Bonus trick: Visually separate weeks with a border
Since our plan has many weeks, it would be cool to show a vertical line between every week. To do this:
- Select the grid again.
- Add a new conditional formatting rule
- Select the type of rule as “Use a formula…”
- Use this formula =WEEKDAY(D$5) = 6
- Set up formatting so that right-side vertical border is shown when the rule is met.
- You are done!
That’s all, our quick Gantt chart is ready
That is all. Your quick project plan is ready. Go ahead and show it off. Use it for an upcoming project and impress your boss.
Download the quick Gantt chart template
Click here to download the template. It contains instructions on how to modify the template. Go ahead and example the formulas, conditional formatting rules to understand more.
How do you like this quick & easy template?
Although I have a lot of complex project plan templates, often I rely something quick & easy like this. It simply works and lets me focus on the project at hand.
What about you? Do you use quick templates like this? Please share your experiences and ideas using comments.
More on Project Management using Excel
Are you a project manager or analyst? Here are a few more examples, templates & resources for you.
- Excel Project Management page – huge collection of tips, resources and downloads.
- Gantt charts using Excel
- Project status dashboard using Excel
- Project Portfolio dashboard using Excel
If you are a project manager or analyst, you would be working with Gantt charts, status reports, issue trackers & project dashboards every day. If you are tired of creating these from scratch, get my Excel Project Management template pack.
It contains 25+ Excel templates for various needs of project management – right from planning to tracking to reporting. All beautifully designed and easy to customize so that you can be an awesome project manager.
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13 Responses to “Using pivot tables to find out non performing customers”
To avoid the helper column and the macro, I would transpose the data into the format shown above (Name, Year, Sales). Now I can show more than one year, I can summarize - I can do many more things with it. ASAP Utilities (http://www.asap-utilities.com) has a new experimental feature that can easily transpose the table into the correct format. Much easier in my opinion.
David
Of course with alternative data structure, we can easily setup a slicer based solution so that everything works like clockwork with even less work.
David, I was just about to post the same!
In Contextures site, I remember there's a post on how to do that. Clearly, the way data is layed out on the very beginning is critical to get the best results, and even you may thinkg the original layout is the best way, it is clearly not. And that kind of mistakes are the ones I love ! because it teaches and trains you to avoid them, and how to think on the data structure the next time.
Eventually, you get to that place when you "see" the structure on the moment the client tells you the request, and then, you realized you had an ephiphany, that glorious moment when data is no longer a mistery to you!!!
Rgds,
Chandoo,
If the goal is to see the list of customers who have not business from yearX, I would change the helper column formula to :
=IF(selYear="all",sum(C4:M4),sum(offset(C4:M4,,selyear-2002,1,columns(C4:M4)-selyear+2002)))This formula will sum the sales from Selected Year to 2012.
JMarc
If you are already using a helper column and the combox box runs a macro after it changes, why not just adjust the macro and filter the source data?
Regards
I gotta say, it seems like you are giving 10 answers to 10 questions when your client REALLY wants to know is: "What is the last year "this" customer row had a non-zero Sales QTY?... You're missing the forest for the trees...
Change the helper column to:
=IFERROR(INDEX(tblSales[[#Headers],[Customer name]:[Sales 2012]],0,MATCH(9.99999999999999E+307,tblSales[[#This Row],[Customer name]:[Sales 2012]],1)),"NO SALES")
And yes, since I'm matching off of them for value, I would change the headers to straight "2002" instead of "Sales 2002" but you sort the table on the helper column and then and there you can answer all of your questions.
Hi thanks for this. Just can't figure out how you get the combo box to control the pivot table. Can you please advise?
Cheers
@Kevin.. You are welcome. To insert a combo box, go to Developer ribbon > Insert > form controls > combo box.
For more on various form controls and how to use them, please read this: http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/03/30/form-controls/
Thanks Chandoo. But I know how to insert a combobox, I was more referring to how does in control the year in the pivot table? Or is this obvious? I note that if I select the Selected Year from the PivotTable Field List it says "the field has no itens" whereas this would normally allow you to change the year??
Thanks again
worked it out thanks...
when =data!Q2 changes it changes the value in column N:N and then when you do a refreshall the pivottable vlaues get updated
Still not sure why PivotTable Field List says “the field has no itens"?? I created my own pivot table and could not repeat that.
Hi, I put the sales data in range(F5:P19) and added a column D with the title 'Last sales in year'. After that, in column D for each customer, the simple formula
=2000+MATCH(1000000,E5:P5)
will provide the last year in which that particular customer had any sales, which can than easily be managed by autofilter.
Somewhat longer but perhaps a bit more solid (with the column titles in row 4):
=RIGHT(INDEX($F$4:$P$19,1,MATCH(1000000,F5:P5)),4)
[…] Finding non-performing customers using Pivot Tables […]