The Gantt Chart

 

The Gantt chart will be displayed on waterfall projects

Toolbar

  • Create a new task
  • Edit a task
  • Undo – Redo
  • Collapse – Expand all summaries
  • vZoom in-out
  • Zoom to fit
  • Navigate time spans
  • Show active baseline
  • Create a new baseline
  • Automatically schedule tasks by dependencies (toggles on/off)
  • Schedule selected tasks by dependencies (one time)
  • Set task duration based on estimated effort (See the effort-based duration section for more on this)
  • Show critical path
  • Search tasks by name
  • Import from MS Project
  • Export to PDF

Contextual menu

When you right-click on a task, a menu will show the various options available, such as edit the task, filter by name, add a task, indent, outdent, or delete.

The availability of some of these options are conditioned to the task’s characteristics:

  • A task cannot be deleted if it has a team assigned, has risks associated, or has issues associated
  • The indent option will be available if the previous task can be converted to a summary. For example, if the previous task has a team assigned, the indent option will not be enabled

Columns

You can customize the columns section’s layout (left panel) by right-clicking on any column’s name. You will be presented with various options

  • Filter
  • Select which columns you want to be displayed
  • Sort by one or multiple columns

Your custom view will be saved and available on your next visit. Clearing the browser’s cache will result in your preferences to be reset to the default setting.

Task editing

You can edit a task by clicking on the edit button while positioned on the task, right-clicking on the task and selecting “Edit” or by double-clicking on the bar representing the task on the Gantt’s right panel

Most options display information about the task and are self-explanatory. Nevertheless, some fields require further explanation:

  • GENERAL →  Effort: read-only field displaying the sum of all user estimated efforts. It does not include the unassigned effort if the task had any.
  • GENERAL →  Manually scheduled: Checked by default, allow users to schedule the task manually. Unchecked will schedule by dependencies automatically.
  • RESOURCES : You can set both the percentage and number of hours for each resource. See the effort-based duration section for more on this.
  • ADVANCED : You can apply constraints for your tasks. Please note that at task creation, a “Start no earlier than” constraint will be set to the task start date. If you remove it, the task will start following its dependencies, or at the project start date if there are no dependencies.

Task dependencies

You can set dependencies between tasks in all their forms (Start-Finish, Start-Start, Finish-Start, Finish-Finish) and set the number of lead or lag days between them.

There are three ways you can do so:

  1. Hover the start task’s bar and drag the circle to its successor. You can then double click the arrow created between the tasks to edit the dependency.
  2. Display the predecessor and successor columns and add the task you want to create a dependency to. You can add a suffix to indicate the direction of the dependency (SS, SF, FS, FF) plus or minus the number of days in case you need to add a lead or a lag.
  3. Edit the task and use the tabs Successors and Predecessors.
  4. Note that once dependencies are established, you cannot convert a task to a summary task.

Effort-based duration

You can set the task’s duration based on the estimated efforts of the team assigned.

To do so, on Edit task  RESOURCES set the percentage of dedication and the number of hours you estimate the task will require for each member. Then, select the task or tasks, and click on the toolbar’s icon “Set task duration based on effort”   . As a result, the task will automatically set the duration to the number of days of the team member that will take longer.

For example, a task has two users, both of which have 40 estimated hours. This setting will make the task duration to be five days. If you change the percentage of one of them to 50%, the task will take ten days.

Progress calculation

Summary tasks and project calculated progress will show the progress according to the progress calculation method applied to the project.

Each summary will have its “% Done” updated when one of the subtasks is updated. Similarly, the “Calculated Progress” located on the right-top corner of the page will also be updated. Note that the “% Completed” field on the left will only be updated when you save with the “Create an automatic progress report” option checked.

Saving and Further Actions

When you save the Gantt chart, you make it available for other users and trigger some other actions:

  • Team members will be notified according to their communication preferences
  • Estimated hour distribution will be recalculated if need be.