Well, the repeats don’t line up, so that’s not going to do it. Excel 2007: Right click axis > Format Axis > Main tab, change Axis Type to Date Axis. Excel 2003: Chart menu > Chart Options > Axes tab, change Category (X) Axis from Automatic to Time Scale. Now we convert the vertical (category) axis to a date-scale axis. I’ve already fixed up the chart, hiding the “Start” series, reversing the categories on the vertical axis, and so forth. We can use the yellow shaded region and make a stacked bar chart, which results in the following Gantt chart. We’ll add a single column showing the duration of the call, time out minus time in. The data from the previous example showed times that ambulances were sent on calls and returned, with columns for the ambulance number, time out, and time in. I’ve written two tutorials about Gantt charts, Gantt Charts in Microsoft Excel and Advanced Gantt Charts in Microsoft Excel. The first series in the stack is hidden via formatting (no border and no fill), leaving the upper series to show the duration of each task, floating between its start and finish. Gantt charts are made in Excel using stacked horizontal bar charts. The only trick now is getting a date axis where the categories are text labels. Adding a repeated task means adding another row to the data and extending the chart source data to include this new row: Excel will align this repeated task with the others it belongs with. The simplification Derek suggested makes use of a characteristic of date scale axes in Excel line, column, area, and bar charts: Multiple data points for a given date are plotted in the middle of the slot for that date. My technique added two more series for each repeated task, one for the gap between repeats, the other for the duration of the repeat.Įver vigilant reader Derek pointed out that this approach necessitated multiple series, and if more instances of a task were added to the data, more pairs of series would have to be added to the chart. An Excel Gantt chart consists of a bar chart series showing the duration of a task, stacked on a transparent bar that pushes the visible bar out to the start of the task. In a recent post, I showed a technique that allowed Repeated Tasks in an Excel Gantt Chart.

Gantt chart maker reddit