Interacting with the Gantt Chart

To the right of the Data Columns in ProjectPlan.com, is the Gantt Schedule, as shown below:

In this panel, you can see a visual representation of your project plan in the form of a Gantt Chart, otherwise known as a "Schedule". Read the "Schedule Basics" and "Changing Timescales" sections to find out more.

Schedule Basics

The Schedule (or "Gantt Chart") is the area to the right of the Data Columns that shows the sequencing of tasks. Like in Microsoft Project, you can click on task bars displayed to change the task information.
Here is what a task bar looks like:

The small white box on the left is called the "Start Date slider". The box in the middle is called the "Percent Complete" slider and the box on the right is called the "Finish Date slider".

Here is a list of all of the things you can do with a task bar, once you've clicked on it:

• Change the Planned Start Date: When you click on the Start date slider and drag it to the left or right, you will automatically change the Planned Start Date for the task. Note: As you do this, it will automatically update the Planned Duration.
• Change the Planned Finish Date: When you click on the Finish date slider and drag it to the left or right, you will automatically change the Planned Finish Date for the task. Note: As you do this, it will automatically update the Planned Duration.
• Change the Percent Complete: When you click on the Percent Complete slider and drag it to the left or right, you will automatically change the Percent Complete for the task. You can change it to any percent complete, from 0% to 100% as you wish.
• Move a task to another timeframe: If you hover over the middle of the task, then the mouse will change as shown below. When this happens, you can drag the task bar to the left or the right, to change the planned timeframe that the task should be completed in.
  
• Link two tasks together: If you click on a task bar and you move your mouse vertically, then the mouse pointer will change into a "Link" pointer as shown below. You can then click on another task to create a link to it. These links are known as dependencies. Links work the same in ProjectManager.com as in Microsoft Project.
  
• Right Mouse Click: When you right mouse click on a task bar, a small menu will appear as shown below.
  

You can:

• Unlink the task, deleting all links to and from this task.
• Lock the task, so that the start and finish dates cannot be moved.
• Alert users in your account by email, when the task is late.
• Delete the task from your task list.

Changing Timescales

If you click on the Timescale shown at the top of the Schedule (as per below), then a Timescale menu panel will appear.

The menu panel looks like this:

On this panel, the following options are available:

• Top and Bottom Tier: These are the primary and secondary timescales that are displayed on the Schedule. For instance, you could select to view Months over Weeks, or Weeks over Days.
• Label Format: This format allows you to change the way in which the data is displayed, for the Top Tier and Bottom Tier respectively.
• Today's marker: When checked, it will display a vertical line showing today's date. When unchecked, it will disappear.
• Weekend Shading: This will determine whether the weekends are shaded grey or not. When checked, they will be shaded. When unchecked, they will not.

Multiple Views

On the right hand side of your Gantt chart, you will see a small "eye" graphic. When you click on it, a small drop-down menu will appear as shown below:

There are 3 views available to you:

• Planned: This is the Planned view of all of your tasks. When you first created your task list and the Gantt chart populated automatically, then this is the view that will display when this item is selected.
• Actual: This is the actual view of your tasks. It will only be available if you have entered "Actuals" data in the Data Column or Task Information areas, for each task. This includes the "Actual Start Date", "Actual Finish Date" and "Actual Percent Complete".
• Baseline: This is the baseline view of your tasks. The baseline view was created when you clicked the "Baseline" button on the Menu bar at the top. The baseline view is of course only available if you have baselined your project.

You can click all 3 views if you have sufficient data to display.

Multiple Pages

So that ProjectPlan.com works as fast as possible, we have limited the number of tasks that you can see on a single page to 200. That means if you have more than 200 tasks, then the software will split them across multiple pages.
When this happens, page numbers appear as follows:

You can click on a page number to view the next page.

Tip:

Just above the page number, you can see a small dark blue vertical slider (shown at the end of the arrow in the image above). You can click this and drag it to the left or right, to change the page numbering quickly.