Gantt diagrams help build and follow project planning and show how its phases articulate. It is an indispensable tool to report progress made, highlight key deadlines and milestones and ensure projects are on schedule.

With Power-user you can create Gantt charts in PowerPoint, Excel or Word. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Creating Gantt charts in PowerPoint, Excel or Word
• Gantt charts templates in Excel

Creating Gantt charts in PowerPoint, Excel or Word

To create a Gantt chart in PowerPoint, Excel or Word, you can simply insert one of the Gantt charts available in the Library, under Charts.

Editing the Gantt chart is super easy, just select the chart, and then:

• Use the contextual menu at the top left to edit the start date and end date of the chart, or to show the current date on the Gantt chart.
• Go to the "Chart Options" tab, and then click "Edit data" to edit the data for the chart. The mini Excel sheet will open where you can add your own data instead of the sample data.
• Use the usual Microsoft Office buttons for chart editions, to perform tasks such as changing colors, fonts, labels, axis, etc. 

Gantt charts templates in Excel

Instead of using a chart object, you can also create Gantt charts in Excel directly in the grid, so you have complete control and can customize it to your exact need.

Power-user provides you with Gantt chart templates. These are spreadsheets that you can start with to create your Gantt.

To insert a Gantt chart template in Excel:

• From the Power-user ribbon in Excel, click the Library. 
• Under Templates, browse for Gantt charts.
• Click the Gantt templates of your choice: with days as base time unit, or with weeks as the base time unit.

To edit and customize the template:

• Insert the Start date for your project in the yellow input cell.
• List your categories, tasks and owners in the [TASK CATEGORY], [Task],  [Owner] placeholders.
• For each task:
  • Define the duration in the Days (or Weeks) column
  • Define the start date in the START column. You can specifty start dates specifically, or use formulas to create dependencies, like making a Task 2 start the day after the end of Task 1 for instance. This way if there is a delay for Task 1, the rest of the chart will adjust automatically.  
  • The end dates are calculated automatically based on the START and DAYS columns (beginning and duration of tasks). If you have specified holidays in the Holidays sheet, they will be taken into account for calculating the end dates.
  • Optionnally, you can also define a percentage of completion of the task, in the % DONE column. When a task is partially completed, it will show partially in one column and partially in another.
• To customize the colors for completed or remaining tasks, select one of the cells and click Conditional Formatting. Change the rules to apply the colors of your choice.
• The current date will automatically appear on the Gantt chart based on Conditional Formatting as well.