Timeline for projects in excel

A project timeline can be created in Excel using charts linked to data tables, so that the chart updates when you edit the data table. The first template on this page uses a stacked bar chart technique and also includes up to 4 milestones as vertical lines. This template is a cross between my project schedule and task list templates. I’ve populated the template with some generic product development terminology, but it is designed for you to enter your own tasks and dates. The second template uses a scatter chart with data labels and leader lines to create a more traditional type of timeline.

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Using the Project Timeline Template

Grouping Tasks Using Different Colors: One of the key features of this template is the ability to choose a different color for the bars in the timeline via a drop-down box in the Color column. This makes it easy to identify the different phases or categories of tasks. You can insert and delete tasks by just inserting or deleting rows in the spreadsheet’s data table.

The example above shows some of the steps in a product development cycle (Concept Development, System Design, Detail Design, Testing and Refining, Production, etc.), with different colors representing different phases of the cycle. However, there are other ways to use this type of timeline. Another common way to group tasks within a project timeline is by key organization function, such as Marketing, Design, Testing, Manufacturing, Finance, Sales, Quality Assurance, Legal, etc.

Milestones: With any project timeline, you will most likely want to define at least a couple key milestones. In the above example you will see 3 milestones as vertical lines. You can edit the milestone labels and dates via the data table. The template lets you show up to 4 milestones. Adding more is possible but would require you to create the new data series yourself (you can’t just insert rows for more milestones like you can with the tasks).

Can I Add More Colors? This project timeline is set up to allow up to 6 different color choices. Adding more colors is possible, but that would require more Excel experience. Some general steps to follow to attempt adding more colors:

1. Add a new column to the right of the current data table.
2. Copy the formulas in the previous column into the new column.
3. Select the timeline and drag the range marker to the right to include the new column.
4. Add some data to see what color the new column uses and then update the column label.
5. Update the list used for the data validation drop-down box in the Color column to include the new label.

Dates Not Changing in the Chart? To edit the range of dates shown in the chart, you need to edit the Minimum and Maximum bounds of the horizontal axis. Right-click on the axis and select Format Axis.

Want More Flexibility / Ease of Use? If you don’t care about automation and just want a simple way to create a high-level project timeline, you might want to try the Project Schedule Template. Colors are modified by just changing the background colors of the cells in the spreadsheet.

Description

This project timeline uses two different scatter chart series to display milestones above the timeline and tasks with durations below the timeline. The durations are created using X Error bars. The length of the leaderlines for the tasks can be defined by the user to show task dependencies.

The vertical positions of the tasks and milestones are adjusted by the user. This may work great for some timelines, but if you have more than 20 tasks to show, you may be better of using a Gantt Chart.

This template is based on the original Vertex42 Excel Timeline Template, which was one of the first timeline templates developed for Excel using the technique of leaderlines and error bars for durations. This new project timeline works only in the more recent versions of Excel (2013 or later) because of the new feature in Excel that allows you to specify a range of cells for Data Labels.

To learn how to create a timeline using a scatter chart, see the video demos for the Bubble Chart Timeline and Vertical Timeline templates.

Use a Graphic as a Data Point Marker in a Project Timeline

You can add graphics to a project timeline to make it more interesting or visually appealing. For example, you may want to mark the final milestone with a finish-line flag, as shown in the image below. To do this, you will first need to create a graphic using your favorite image editing app, or download one. The diamond and flag that I use in my project timelines were created from screenshots of common unicode characters.

Steps for using a graphic as a data point marker:

1. Select a single data point by clicking on it and then clicking on it again.
2. Right-click on the selected data point to open the Format Data Point task pane.
3. Click on the Bucket > Marker > Marker Options > Built-in, then select the picture icon from the Type drop-down.
4. Select the image from your computer.

To see other examples of using graphics in a timeline, see my original Timeline Template.

More Project Timelines

We, humans, are visual animals.

In other words, the human brain will find it a lot easier to digest information that’s clearly communicated and displayed. For this reason, the visual component is essential when planning complex projects with many moving pieces.

Well, you’re in the right place to learn precisely how to do just that.

In this blog post, you’ll get a step-by-step process to create a timeline in Excel in three different ways to visually communicate your project’s schedule and create a powerful visual timeline to plan without getting a headache.

• Create a timeline in Excel using SmartArt Graphics
• Create a timeline in Excel using Scatter Charts
• Create a timeline in Excel using Timeline Templates
• The pros & cons of Excel timelines
• The alternative

How to create a timeline in Excel using SmartArt? (and for what purpose)

For starters, what are SmartArt graphics?

SmartArt Graphics Timeline In Excel: for what purpose?

Microsoft Excel’s Smart Art feature makes it reasonably straightforward to create a project timeline.

Now, while SmartArt timelines can be a valuable tool to communicate a project’s roadmap to stakeholders, they are also limited; you can only create simplistic timelines to visualize the milestones of a project.

In short: SmartArt timelines are okay for simple reporting purposes, not to work with.

Create your SmartArt timeline

1. Open a blank Excel document. Click Insert > SmartArt > Process.

1. Then select Basic Timeline from the Graphic options. You may also choose other graphics templates that suit your needs.

1. Enter Timeline data either in the provided text box or directly on the timeline.

1. Excel also allows you to change the style of a timeline. To do so, simply right-click to change the theme style, fill color, and outline styles.

And you’re all set. Your simplistic Excel SmartArt timeline should be ready!

If you’re after something more usable than SmartArt, you may be interested in building a scatter chart.

How to Create an Excel Timeline Using a Scatter Chart? (and for what purpose) 

Scatter chart timelines in Excel: for what purpose?

Scatter charts provide a simple way to visualize various data entries over a specific period.

For instance, you could use a scatter chart to visualize the due date for all milestones of a project along with the necessary resources to complete them.

This is something that a basic SmartArt timeline couldn’t deliver.

Here again, you can choose from and edit the many charts available in Microsoft Excel to represent a simple project timeline that will suit your needs.

In short: Scatter chart timelines are a viable option to plan elementary projects that don’t require much resourcing.

Create your scatter chart timeline in Excel

This guide is a bit longer, but stick to our steps, and you’ll be fine! — alternatively, feel free to leave a comment below if you’re stuck!

1. First, open a blank Excel document.
2. Then, prepare your chart data.

For this chart, we’ll create milestones for a website design project and attribute a due date and an estimated effort for each.

1. Next, insert a scatter chart from Insert > Charts. Then select the Scatter option.

Now, we need to map our prepared data to the chart.

1. Right-click on the scatter chart. Then click the Select Data option.

1. In the dialog that pops up, click on the Add button in the Legend Entries section.
2. Set the Due Dates range as Series X values, and the Efforts range as the Series Y values.

1. Next, make our chart look like a timeline, disable the Primary Vertical Axis,  Chart Title, and Gridlines chart elements.

1. To display the timeline markers, check the Error Bars option in Chart Elements.

1. Then to format the error bars, click on Chart Elements > Error bars > More Options.
2. For horizontal error bars, set the End Style to No Cap and the Error Amount > Percentage to 0%.

1. For vertical error bars, set the Direction to Minus and the Error Amount > Percentage to 100%.

1. To display the milestone labels, enable Data Labels from Chart Elements > Data Labels. Then click on Data Labels > More Options.

1. Enable the Value From Cells option and select the range of milestones names from our prepared data. Uncheck the Y Value option.

Hats off to you! You made it! Your Excel timeline using a scatter chart is ready.

Now, if you don’t want to bother creating your own Excel timeline charts from scratch (I can’t blame you there), an alternative is to make your timelines using Excel templates.

Excel timeline templates are readily available in Microsoft Office’s Template Library.

Note that some of these templates will only be available once you purchase a Microsoft Office 365 subscription. However, the vast majority is available free of charge.

In short: use ready Excel templates to create simple project plans to avoid building them yourself.

Let’s look at how to create a timeline in Excel using a template.

Create your timelines with Excel Templates

1. Download the free “Project timeline with milestones” template from the Office template library.

1. Open the downloaded template in Excel and update your milestone data in the Project Milestones section. Set the milestone due date, milestone description, the person responsible, and the milestone label position.

As you update your project milestone data, the milestone chart above automatically gets updated.

This is most likely the fastest way to build a decent timeline on Excel, especially if you don’t want to bother creating one from scratch on your own.

Now, you’ve probably noticed that while Excel makes it possible to create project timelines, it’s not cut for it.

Pros & Cons Of Excel Timelines

As mentioned earlier, a timeline is a powerful visual tool for project managers.

In the early stages of a project, it helps to communicate a project’s roadmap. And in the later stages, it allows project managers to plan and track project schedules and allocate resources.

What makes Excel an interesting project timeline maker…

The most significant advantage of using Microsoft Excel to create a timeline is that it’s easily available: 

• Anyone with a computer, a smartphone, or a tablet can use Excel. It’s relatively affordable and doesn’t require a beast of a computer to run properly.
• You probably already have access to it. If you already have access to the MS Office Suite, you won’t need to spend anything extra.
• Your team is most likely Excel literate (up to a certain degree). If your team members are already comfortable using Excel, you won’t need to spend time training and onboarding them on the tool.
• You can find a ton of free Excel templates online. Using these templates, it’s reasonably easy to create a timeline in Excel.

… and why you might need something that’s built for project planning and work management

Don’t get me wrong; I love Excel (there’s a reason why I’ve decided to write this step-by-step blog post). And if you are seriously considering using Excel as your project timeline maker, know that I’ve been in your position, and I’d rather tell you why it might drive you crazy.

• Excel lacks collaborative features. You cannot work with another team member on a project’s schedule unless you both sit right next to each other. As a result, it is tough for distributed teams to plan together.
• You can’t ensure data integrity. It’s (way too) easy for anyone to wrongly update or delete data from an Excel document, making it hard to keep track of who did what, where, and when.
• Version soup: “Oh shoot, I thought we were working from the Team Planning V12_new.xls?” Team members will eventually work on different versions of Excel spreadsheets. From experience, I know that combining data from these versions can quickly become chaotic.

To sum up, Excel is OK for small and simple projects. You will need something else for anything bigger because Excel timeline templates are too basic and aren’t really teamwork-friendly. 

So, what then? What’s the alternative?

To create project timelines for larger projects, you may want to consider using a project planning tool like Toggl Plan.

Meet Toggl Plan. The best way to create visual project timelines.

Toggl Plan is an easy-to-use SaaS with a drag-and-drop interface that helps those in charge of delivering projects to be on top of their work and capacity planning by providing a clear overview of who’s doing what and when, well ahead of time. 

Consequently, teams can work at capacity and deliver projects on time, without stressing about it.


Create beautiful timelines for complex projects

Excel’s timelines can be helpful – But they are too simplistic and can be darn hard to read. We built Toggl Plan’s timeline to become the only tool you need to plan and visualize your projects.

Don’t overwork yourself, or your team.

One of the advantages of planning well ahead of time is to anticipate how much work you and your team can take.

In Toggl Plan, you’ll be able to see how busy everyone is in the blink of an eye, thus making it more convenient to move tasks around and make sure that no one in your team works silly hours.

Collaborate with your teammates

While you can benefit from it as a single user, we actually built Toggl Plan for teams. When working together, you can leave comments, create and assign tasks, move tasks around, adjust how long it took to complete a project, etc. 

In other words, Toggl Plan enables teamwork.

Drag and drop your projects

While Excel is most likely the most comprehensive software out there, it’s not user-friendly. One of the things that I dislike the most about it is the impossibility to drag-and-drop items.

In Toggl Plan, you can simply drag and drop your tasks.

Painless. Fast. Easy.

Long story short, Toggl Plan makes project planning and work management bliss. Now, hold your horse because the best is yet to come. If you’re an individual user, Toggl Plan is free forever. And if you work with a team, you can sign up for a 14-day free trial.

Smartsheet Contributor

Kate Eby

August 3, 2017

Предположим, мы работаем над долгим и сложным проектом, состоящим из нескольких этапов. Задача — наглядно показать всю хронологию работ по проекту, расположив ключевые моменты проекта (вехи, milestones) на оси времени. Примерно вот так:

В теории управления проектами подобный график обычно называют календарем или временной шкалой проекта (project timeline), хотя я также встречал еще один русскоязычный аналог -«лента времени». В любом случае, главное — не как назвать, а как построить. Поехали…

Шаг 1. Исходные данные

Для построения нам потребуется оформить исходную информацию по вехам проекта в виде следующей таблицы:

Обратите внимание на два дополнительных служебных столбца:

• Линия — столбец с одинаковой константой около нуля по всем ячейкам. Даст на графике горизонтальную линию, параллельную оси Х, на которой будут видны узлы — вехи проекта. В принципе, можно было бы использовать и полный ноль, но тогда график совпадает с осью X, что дает проблемы потом с настройкой внешнего вида диаграммы в Excel 2007-2010. Новый Excel 2013 нули воспринимает спокойно.
• Выноски — невидимые столбцы для поднятия подписей к вехам на заданную (разную) величину, чтобы подписи не накладывались. Значения 1,2,3 и т.д. задают уровень поднятия подписей над осью времени и выбираются произвольно.

Шаг 2. Строим основу

Теперь выделяем в таблице все, кроме первого столбца (т.е. диапазон B1:D13 в нашем примере) и строим обычный плоский график с маркерами на вкладке Вставка — График — График с маркерами (Insert — Chart — Line with markers):

     

Убираем линии сетки, вертикальную и горизонтальную шкалы и легенду. Сделать это можно вручную (выделение мышью и клавиша Delete) или отключив ненужные элементы на вкладке Макет (Layout). В итоге должно получиться следующее:

Теперь выделите ряд Выноски (т.е. ломаную оранжевую линию) и на вкладке Макет выберите команду Линии — Линии проекции (Layout — Lines — Projection Lines):

От каждой точки верхнего графика будет опущен перпендикуляр на нижний. В новом Excel 2013 эта опция находится на вкладке Конструктор — Добавить элемент диаграммы (Design — Add Chart Element).

Шаг 3. Добавляем названия этапов

Эта часть будет простой у тех, кто уже осмелился на установку нового Excel 2013 и более сложной у тех, кто еще работает со старыми версиями.

В Excel 2013 все просто. Как я уже писал здесь, он умеет делать подписи к точкам данных просто беря текст из любого заданного пользователем диапазона. Для этого нужно выделить ряд с данными (оранжевый) и на вкладке Конструктор выбрать Добавить элемент диаграммы — Подписи — Дополнительные параметры (Design — Add Chart Element — Data Labels), а затем в появившейся справа панели установить флажок Значения из ячеек (Values from cells) и выделить диапазон A2:A13:

В версиях Excel 2007-2010 и старше такой возможности нет, но у вас есть два альтернативных варианта:

1. Добавьте любые подписи к оранжевому графику (значения, например). Затем выделяйте по очереди каждую подпись, ставьте в строке формул знак «равно» и щелкайте по ячейке с названием этапа из столбца А. Текст выделенной подписи будет автоматически браться из выделенной ячейки:

   

2. При большом количестве этапов первый вариант, конечно, не радует своей «рукопашностью». Поэтому для оптовой вставки подписей из ячеек можно использовать дополнительные надстройки на VBA. В частности, надстройку XYChartLabeler (автор — Rob Bovey, Excel MVP). Скачиваете надстройку, устанавливаете и получаете на вкладке Надстройки (Add-ins) кнопку XY Chart Labeler — Add Chart Labels. После нажатия на нее появляется диалоговое окно, где и можно задать диапазон с данными для подписей на диаграмме:

   

Шаг 4. Прячем линии и наводим блеск

Внесем последние правки, чтобы довести нашу уже почти готовую диаграмму до полного и окончательного шедевра:

• Выделяем ряд Выноски (оранжевую линию), щелкаем по ней правой кнопкой мыши и выбираем Формат ряда данных (Format Data Series). В открывшемся окне убираем заливку и цвет линий. Оранжевый график, фактически, исчезает из диаграммы — остаются только подписи. Что и требуется.
• Добавляем подписи-даты к синей оси времени на вкладке Макет — Подписи данных — Дополнительные параметры подписей данных — Имена категорий (Layout — Data Labels — More options — Category names). В этом же диалоговом окне подписи можно расположить под графиком и развернуть на 90 градусов, при желании.

Ссылки по теме

• График проекта (диаграмма Ганта) в Excel с помощью условного форматирования
• Видеоурок по созданию графика проекта (диаграммы Ганта) в Excel 2010
• Новые возможности диаграмм в Microsoft Excel 2013