Timing plan in excel

3 Ways To Create A Project Timeline In Excel (+ free template)

Last Updated: 20 August 2021 02 September 2022

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.

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.

How to Create a timeline in Excel using Timeline 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.

Jitesh is an SEO and Content Specialist at Toggl. On this blog, he shares actionable tips for professional service teams to deliver projects profitably.

Источник

Временная шкала проекта (Project Timeline)

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:

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:

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.

Источник

What is the Timeline in Excel?

Timeline in Excel is a kind of SmartArt created to display the different timings of a particular process. It is mainly used for filtering the underlying datasets by date. Such datasets are in the form of pivot tables containing the date field.

The timeline was first introduced in the 2013 version of Excel.

How to Create Timelines in Excel? (With Example)

You can download this Timeline Excel Template here – Timeline Excel Template

In the following table, there are five columns, namely–Date, Branch, Product Category, Customer Type, and RevenueRevenue is the amount of money that a business can earn in its normal course of business by selling its goods and services. In the case of the federal government, it refers to the total amount of income generated from taxes, which remains unfiltered from any deductions.read more.

With the help of a pivot table A Pivot Table is an Excel tool that allows you to extract data in a preferred format (dashboard/reports) from large data sets contained within a worksheet. It can summarize, sort, group, and reorganize data, as well as execute other complex calculations on it.read moreand a pivot chart, let us create a timeline in Excel. The pivot table and pivot chartIn Excel, a pivot chart is a built-in feature that allows you to summarize selected rows and columns of data in a spreadsheet. It is a visual representation of a pivot table that helps in the summarization and analysis of datasets, patterns, and trends.read more help summarize and analyze data.

Step #1 – Create table object

Step #2 – Create a pivot table

Since we want to summarize the revenue data across different categories of the timeline, we create a pivot table.

The steps to create a pivot table are listed as follows:

• Click on the data set within the table.
• Go to the Insert tab, select “PivotTable,” and click “Ok.”

• The “PivotTable Fields” pane appears in another sheet. Name this sheet as “PivotTable_Timeline.”
• In the “PivotTable Fields” pane, drag “branch” to the “rows” section, “product category” to the “columns” section, and “revenue” to the “values” section.

Step #3 – Create a pivot chart

We need to base a pivot chart on the pivot table that we have created. The steps to create a pivot chart are stated as follows:

• Copy the previous sheet as “PivotChart_Timeline” or create another sheet with this name.
• Click inside the pivot table on the sheet “PivotChart_Timeline.”
• In the Home tab, go to “Analyze” and select “PivotChart.”

• The “insert chart” popup window appears.
• Select “stacked column chart” and click “Ok.”

• The pivot chart appears as shown in the following image.

• In the pivot chart, you can hide the “product category,” “branch,” and “sum of revenue.” To do this, right-click and select “hide legend field buttons on chart,” as shown in the succeeding screenshot.

• The pivot chart appears without the legend buttons, as shown in the following image.

Step #4 – Insert a timeline in Excel

The steps to insert a timeline are mentioned as follows:

• Copy the “PivotChart_Timeline” to other sheets with the “create a copy” option. The popup window shown in the succeeding image appears.
• Right-click on the sheet name “PivotChart_Timeline” and name the sheet as “Insert_Timeline.”

• Click anywhere on the data set of the pivot table. Select the Analyze tab on the Excel ribbonThe ribbon is an element of the UI (User Interface) which is seen as a strip that consists of buttons or tabs; it is available at the top of the excel sheet. This option was first introduced in the Microsoft Excel 2007.read more and click on the “Insert Timeline” button in the Filter group.

• The “insert timelines” pop-up window appears. It shows a checkbox with the date field. This is the filter of the timeline. Select the checkbox and click “Ok.”

• Now, the timeline appears.

• For the timeline, you can configure or select group dates by years, quarters, months or days with the help of the drop-down list.

• We have selected “years” as shown in the following image.

How Does the Timeline Filter the Pivot Table?

Let us consider the previous example again.

We want the timeline to filter the pivot table with results of the year 2018. To do this, click on “2018” in the timeline slicer.

The revenue for the year 2018 with reference to the branch and product category appears.

Now, let us select “quarters” from the dropdown list. If quarterly data in the timeline is not visible, drag the blue-colored box towards the end.

Let us select the 2^nd quarter of 2016 to observe revenue across the different branches and product categories.

Top Timeline Tools in Excel

Timelines in Excel help filter the dates of the pivot tables. This is done with the help of various tools that assist in the working of the timeline.

The timeline tools appear to the right and the left of the Options tab, as shown in the following two images.

The major timeline tools are listed as follows:

#1 – Timeline slicer

The timeline slicer allows toggling between years, quarters, months, and days. In the dashboard, there is an option of combining the timeline with the slicer.

In comparison to the normal date filter, the timeline slicer is a more effective visual tool. This is because the latter provides a graphical representation that helps track critical milestones.

#2 – Scroll bar

It appears in the Options tab and helps select periods. It also allows scrolling through the years, quarters, months, and days.

#3 – Time level

This tool allows selecting from four different time levels based on choice. The four-time levels are, namely–years, quarters, months, and days.

#4 – Filter

This button helps clear all the “time” options like years, quarters, months or days.

It displays the heading or the title of the timeline, as shown in the following image.

#6 – Selection label

It displays the date rangeTo create a data range in Excel, click anywhere in the table and then go to table tools>design on the ribbon>convert to range. To do so, right-click the table and select table>convert to range.read more that is included in the filter.

#7 – Timeline window size

The height and width of the PivotTable timeline can be adjusted according to the requirement. It is also possible to resize the timeline window by dragging it from its borders.

#8 – Timeline caption

By default, the caption box shows the column name as the caption. This is the column that was selected while inserting the timeline.

#9 – Timeline style

There are various style options in Excel for the PivotTable timeline. The following screenshot shows 12 types of theme styles.

The style of the timeline can also be customized according to choice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Recommended Articles

This has been a guide to Timeline in Excel. Here we discuss how to use timeline tools in Excel to create a Timeline in Excel along with practical examples and a downloadable Excel template. You may learn more about Excel from the following articles –

• Add a Border in ExcelIn Excel, a border is used to separate data tables or a specific range of cells from the rest of the text. As a result, it makes it easier to find specific information quickread more
• Add Filter in ExcelThe filter in excel helps display relevant data by eliminating the irrelevant entries temporarily from the view. The data is filtered as per the given criteria. The purpose of filtering is to focus on the crucial areas of a dataset. For example, the city-wise sales data of an organization can be filtered by the location. Hence, the user can view the sales of selected cities at a given time.
  read more
• Editing Drop-Down List in ExcelDropdowns in Excel assist a user in manually entering data in a cell with some specific values to choose from.read more
• VLOOKUP FalseIn excel we use the VLOOKUP false function to look for an exact match. In the vlookup function, we can use «1» as the criteria for TRUE and use «0» as the criteria for FALSE. The need for using TRUE may not arise so always stick to FALSE as the criteria for [Range Lookup].read more