Gantt charts are useful for visualizing a project’s timeline and activity flow. In this article, learn how to create an interactive project gantt chart with drill-down capability using Excel. Here is a demo of the gantt chart we will be creating.
Download the Drill-down Gantt Chart Template
Please click here to download the gantt chart template. Just change the input data and click on “Refresh” button from Data ribbon to update the gantt chart.
If you want more project management templates, please click here.
Step by Step Tutorial - Gantt Chart with Drill-down
Please watch below short tutorial to learn how to create an interactive multi-level project gantt chart in Excel. Alternatively, just read on to get the instructions.
If you want to create a similar gantt chart from your data, Please follow below steps.
Step 1: Get your data
You need at least these four columns of data.
Step 2: Make a pivot table from the data
Insert a pivot table from this data. Set it up as shown below. You need,
- Slicer on “module”
- Activity on row labels
- Start date min on values
- End date max on values
Step 3: Create a gantt chart empty outline
In a new worksheet, set up gantt chart outline like below.
You need,
- 4 columns to display activity, start date, end date and duration
- another 90 narrow columns to show the project plan. Feel free to adjust the number of columns based on your needs.
Step 4: Making the left side of gantt chart
The left side portion of our project plan is rather simple to make. We just need to refer to Pivot Table values to get first three columns (Activity, Start and Finish).
We can then calculate the duration using =NETWORKDAYS(start, finish)
After the duration is calculated, add conditional formatting > data bars to it, so that we can easily spot activities that take too long to complete.
Step 5: Gantt chart grid (right side portion)
Now that our gantt chart is ready on the left, let’s complete the grid.
Start by calculating the earliest project start date using min formula =MIN(plan[Start date])
Place this formula in the grid top left cell, as shown below.
Calculate remaining 89 dates by adding +1 working day. Use =WORKDAY(previous date, 1) formula for this.
This will give us a bunch of dates.
Use the next two rows to show month & day portion of this date by referring to the date calculation row. As the cells are too small, merge 2 or 3 of them and show the values.
Now that all the dates are ready, let’s figure out the logic for making gantt chart view.
As shown above, we need a rule to highlight any cell if the date in top row falls between start and finish dates for the corresponding project activity.
To do this, select the entire grid of 100 rows x 90 columns and apply a new conditional formatting rule.
Use “formula” type rule and apply this formula.
=MEDIAN($C6, $D6, M$3) = M$3
Adjust cell references based on your gantt chart setup.
Related: Using MEDIAN formula to check between condition in Excel
Apply necessary formatting and your gantt chart will be ready.
Step 6: Move the slicer to the gantt chart worksheet
This is the last and easiest step.
Just cut and paste the slicer near the gantt chart. Your interactive chart is ready.
Bells & whistles:
- You can add a conditional formatting rule to highlight current date
- Another rule to highlight alternative rows (zebra-shading)
- Adjust the conditional formatting rule to show completed activities in a different color.
How to update the Gantt Chart?
When ever you have new data, simply update the input data worksheet. Then refresh pivot tables (shortcut: Alt+Ctrl+F5). Your Gantt chart will be updated too.
Download the Drill-down Gantt Chart Template
Please click here to download the gantt chart template. Just change the input data and click on “Refresh” button from Data ribbon to update the gantt chart.
If you want more project management templates, please click here.
Questions or Suggestions?
Got some questions or issues when using this template? Have a suggestion for this Gantt Chart? Please post them in the comments section.
Also check out:
24 Responses to “10 Supercool UI Improvements in Excel 2010”
The best improvement by far is the Collapse Ribbon ^ button !
Kind of a shame that some of the best improvements are actually returns to old functionality. One thing I don't like is that to get to recent files I need to do an extra click after File - apart from Save As, that's why I'm usually in the File menu. I like the sparkline options, though they are still as not fully featured as some of the free and pay options out there.
The collapse button for the ribbon menu is good news. Can you make the ribbon menus stick too?
Nine improvements, not ten. You can also select multiple objects in 2007. Click on the Find & Select item at the far right of the Home tab, and the dropdown looks remarkably like your 2010 screenshot.
@Jon.. Thank you. Dumb me, I somehow thought we couldnt select objects in Excel 2007. Just saw the "select menu" and it is there. I have corrected the post and removed the point. I have added the "you can make your own ribbons" instead. Thanks once again.
@Arti: what do you mean by make ribbons stick?
@Alex: May be it is my installation, but when I go to "File menu" I see "recent files" by default.
For example, if I am working with one of the contextual ribbon menus (Pivot tables, Drawing/Chart etc), as soon as I click away from the selected object, the menu tabs vanish. If I click on the object again immediately, then Excel will remember what I was looking at, but if I wander away and click on a Pivot, then back again on the Chart, the menus will 'appear' but not get activated, thereby causing much annoyance and additional clicking.
I want to "pin" the whole menu (not invididual commands) somehow, so that I can have the menu there for the length of the time I am working with graphics. Excel 2003 used to have the Drawing toolbar you could detach and hover while you were working, but this functionality disappeared in Excel 2007.
My thought was Excel should just allow a 'pin', similar to the Recently Opened files menu, for the Ribbon Menus as well. If I have not selected any Drawing object, the commands can be greyed out, but I want the menu as a whole to 'stick'.
@Arti... I think MS solved this problem differently. When I select a pivot and go to "design" tab Excel 2010 remembers this and automatically takes me to "design" tab when I reselect the pivot.
Apart from this you can also define your own ribbon with all the things you normally do. See the above article (I have added this after Jon's comments)
Nice feature. About time for a upgrade for MS Office
Oh... okay. That might be a start. I'd probably just copy-paste the Drawing tab haha. Thanks. I'll definitely give Excel 2010 a try.
Btw - have you considered getting into / gotten into the world of Excel as it meets SharePoint?
Actually, the replacement new thing is probably better than all the rest. One thing that the designers of the Office 2007 ignored was allowing regular users to customize their own interface. Office 2010's interface was expanded in this way to address the huge uproar.
Is there still a limit on how many things you can add to the QAT bar? (I'm too lazy to look myself.)
@Jeff.. it seems to take quite a few, but only shows one line and gives a little arrow button at the end. (summary: shucks!)
The best thing is you can edit the ribbon directly from excel, so now i can create my own bar with just the things I use regularly!
One of the annoying things in 07 for me is the Add-Ins menu bar - in 03 I could keystroke directly to menu add ins.. In 07 I needed an extra keystroke just to activate the add-in menu, then the keystrokes as normal.. Hope this marek sense..
John -
If you remember the old Excel 2003 Alt-key shortcuts, you can still use them in 2007. To get to the Add-In dialog:
Alt-T-I
Dear Arti & Chandoo
Seen your comments over some issues. Hope you are form India, gone through your comment expecting a pin to command it as a whole, great, hope if someone out of MS have read it, it may be kept in mind while the next R & D of Office Ver. 16
Just incase someone forgot CTRL+F1 will collapse the ribbon.
[...] was pleasantly surprised when I ran Microsoft Excel 2010 for first time. It felt smooth, fast, responsive and looked great on my [...]
I like the sparklines, and the ability to modify the charts
How do you get rid of the advertisment on the right hand side? If you upgrade then will it take off the ads?
Once again Microsoft has re-decorated the Office and we are NOT pleased!
The graphics object selector can be found in the Home ribbon under Find & Select, Select Objects near the bottom of the drop down. You can make it part of the Quick Access toolbar by right click over it and selecting Add to Quick Access toolbar.
The graphics "cursor" will now appear on the mini-toolbar at the top left of the window.
How to get rid of "Add-Ins" button in Backstage (File)" menu by means of XML code, i.e. to hide, to delete or to disable this button?
This button is usually situated in the Backstage menu between "Help" and "Options" buttons.
Vladimir, did you ever get an answer to your question?
I am tying to customize the ribbon UI for a file using XML, and this is precisely the piece I can't figure out. I can hide other tabs, remove items from QAT and backstage - all except the options that are showing up under add-ins in backstage. If there is an XML syntax for referencing this thing and making it invisible, I cannot find it.
Hey, nice tutorial. Please check my video tutorial on similar topic at the below link and provide your comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeIFc0jYjpA