The other day, I was building a spreadsheet to calculate FTE (full time equivalent) for staff based on hours worked on various days in a fortnight. While building the spreadsheet, I came across an interesting problem. Rounding Time to nearest minute. We can’t use ROUND() or MROUND() to round time as these formulas aren’t designed to work with time values. Although time values are technically decimal, rounding time to nearest minute (or quarter hour etc.) can be tricky when usual round formulas. Let me share a few formulas to round time to nearest point.
Let’s say you have a time value (either user input or calculated) in cell A1.
Use below formulas to round time in A1.
Nearest second: =TIME(HOUR(A1), MINUTE(A1), SECOND(A1)).
- SECOND formula rounds up any fractions and returns full seconds.
Nearest 15 seconds: =TIME(HOUR(A1), MINUTE(A1), MROUND(SECOND(A1),15))
- Use MROUND() to round up seconds values to nearest multiple of 15 (or whatever else)
Nearest Minute: =TIME(HOUR(A1), MINUTE(A1)+(SECOND(A1)>30),0)
- The seconds value will always be zero. We just look at fractional minutes portion to see if they are more then 30 to round up to next minute. The trick is to add up Boolean check (SECOND(A1)>30) to minutes value.
Nearest 15 minutes: =TIME(HOUR(A1), MROUND(MINUTE(A1)+SECOND(A1)/60,15),0)
- This one uses MROUND to round total mins (including fraction) to nearest multiple of 15.
Nearest 37th minute: =TIME(HOUR(A1), MROUND(MINUTE(A1)+SECOND(A1)/60,37),0)
- Same logic. Just to show you how to round to an arbitrary minute.
Nearest hour: =TIME(HOUR(A1) +((MINUTE(A1)+SECOND(A1)/60)>30),0,0)
- Check if total minutes is greater than 30 and add the result to hours.
Time for some home work
Let’s test your timing skills. Assuming A1 has date & time value (like 26-Jun-2017 7:21:32 AM), round it up to nearest working hour.
- The working hours are 9AM to 6PM on weekdays (Monday – Friday)
Post your answers in the comments section. Tick tock, tick tock… time is ticking, post your answers.
Time to polish your skills
Always having a hard time working with times in Excel? Its high time you took some time to learn about Excel time.
- Working with date & time values in Excel – a quick intro
- Convert fractional time to hours & minutes
- Highlighting over due items
- 42 tips for Excel time travelers – calculating past, present and future time values using formulas
- Sorting by birthday
- More date & time tips
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?