A tour of the screen
| Area | What it is for | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Quick access and menus | Save, Undo and Redo, then the File, Edit, Task, Project, View and Help menus. |
| 2 | Ribbon | Big buttons for the things you do most. |
| 3 | View row | How the chart is shown: zoom, Today, arrows, critical path, folding. |
| 4 | Search and filters | Find tasks, or hide the ones you don’t need to see. |
| 5 | Project header | The plan’s name, its lead, and when it starts and finishes. |
| 6 | Dashboard strip | Percentage complete, cost against budget and task count. Click it to open the dials. |
| 7 | Grid | Your tasks as a table. Type here. |
| 8 | Chart | Your tasks as bars on a calendar. |
| 9 | Plan zoom | Makes the whole plan bigger or smaller. |
2. The ribbon#
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
Add project  | Opens a new, empty plan in its own tab (licensed version). |
Edit project  | The plan’s name, lead, budget, currency and working hours. |
Add task  | Adds a task below the selected row. |
Add milestone  | Adds a milestone below the selected row. |
Edit task  | Opens the task form for the selected task. |
Duplicate  | Copies the selected tasks. |
Delete  | Removes the selected tasks. |
Indent  | Moves a task into the phase above it. |
Outdent  | Moves a task out of its phase. |
Move up  | Moves a task up within its phase. |
Move down  | Moves a task down within its phase. |
Setup timeline  | Chooses which dates the chart shows. |
Resources  | People, their rates, and the working calendars. |
Team calendar  | Everyone in the plan day by day: who is away, what each person is doing, and who is overloaded. You can give leave on it too. Licensed version. See People and resources. |
Dashboard  | Opens the full-page dashboard (F11, licensed version). |
Export  | Saves the plan as a PDF or an Excel workbook to share or print. See Exporting to PDF and Excel. |
Settings  | This plan’s look, columns and date format. Your licence is in File › App settings. |
| Upgrade | Free version only: buy Desktop Plan Pro, or enter the licence key you have. See Licence and updates. It goes once the copy is licensed. |
3 and 4. The view row, search and filters#
- Zoom: Hour to Year sets how much time each column of the chart covers. See Working with the Gantt chart.
- Today scrolls the chart to today’s date. It is greyed while the whole timeline already fits on screen.
- Dependencies shows or hides the arrows between linked tasks.
- Critical path marks the tasks that decide the finish date (licensed version).
- Expand all and Collapse all, the two small buttons with a plus and a minus, open or fold every phase. Hover over either to see which is which.
- Search name or notes and the Filter button narrow down the list. Filter opens a short list: Hide completed, Milestones only, Critical only and Overbooked tasks. See Columns, sorting and filtering.
5 and 6. The project header and dashboard strip#
The header shows the plan’s name and lead on the left. Starts and Finishes on the right are worked out from the tasks, so you can’t type them. Click the name or the lead to change them.
Below it, the Dashboard strip sums up the plan in one line. Click it to open its dials. See The dashboard.
7. The grid#
Each row is a task. Phases (summary tasks) are in bold, with a small triangle to fold them. The WBS column numbers the tasks by their place in the plan: 1, 1.1, 1.2, 2, 2.1 and so on.
Click a cell and type to change it, as in Excel. The last row, Type here to add a task…, adds a new task at the end.
8. The chart#
Each task is a bar, drawn from its start to its end. Milestones are diamonds, and phases are the long bars with turned-down ends. Arrows show which tasks wait for which. The red vertical line is today. Grey columns are days nobody works, such as Sundays.
You can drag bars to move them, drag their ends to change their length, and drag between bars to link them. See Working with the Gantt chart.
The divider between the grid and the chart can be dragged left or right to give either side more room.
9. Plan zoom#
The slider in the bottom-right corner makes the whole plan larger or smaller, from 50% to 200%, without changing what it shows. You can also hold Ctrl and turn the mouse wheel, as in Excel. Click the percentage to go back to 100%.
The status bar#
Messages appear at the bottom left of the window. They tell you what just happened, for example Made "Permits approved" a milestone, or why something could not be done.
The status bar also shows how many rows are selected when you select several, and, while the list is searched or filtered, how many rows are showing, for example Showing 2 of 16 rows. Rows, not tasks: a phase stays in view above a matching task, so it is counted too. A red note says when the list is sorted or filtered, because moving tasks is turned off until you clear it. In the free version, a sample plan says what you can try in it at the left edge of the status bar.