Working with the Gantt chart

Reading the chart#

You see	It means
A bar	A task, from its start to its end.
The darker part inside a bar	The part that is done.
A diamond	A milestone.
A long bar with turned-down ends	A phase (summary task).
An arrow between bars	A link: the second task waits for the first.
The red vertical line	Today.
Shaded columns	Days off, such as weekends and holidays (at Day and Hour zoom).
The text beside a bar	The task’s name. You can choose what is written there: see Changing the look.
A thin strip above or below a bar	The baseline (above) or the actual dates (below). See Baselines.

Rest the pointer on a bar for half a second to see its details. Double-click a bar to open its task form.

How to zoom in and out of time#

Click a Zoom button on the view row:

Zoom	One column is	Good for
Hour	an hour	Work planned in hours
Day	a day	Most plans. New plans open here.
Week	a week	A few months at once
Month	a month	A year or more
Quarter, Half year, Year	three, six or twelve months	Long programmes

You can also hold Ctrl+Shift and turn the mouse wheel over the chart.

To change how wide the columns are at each zoom, go to Settings › Appearance › Timeline › Column width.

How to move around the chart#

Scroll sideways with the scroll bar under the chart, or turn the mouse wheel sideways if it tilts.
Click the round arrows at the left and right ends of the date header to step back or forward one day, week, month, quarter or year (whatever the zoom shows). Shift+click them to jump a whole screen.
Add days at either end with the same arrows. At the first day of the timeline, each click on the left arrow adds a day before it; at the last day, each click on the right arrow adds a day after it. At Week zoom and coarser a click adds a week, month or quarter instead. Point at the arrow to see the date the timeline will start or end on. Ctrl+Z undoes a click, or a whole hold. The new dates show in Setup timeline, and Show the full timeline there puts the timeline back to your tasks.
Alt+Page Up and Alt+Page Down move one screen back or forward. Alt+Left and Alt+Right move one step, like the round arrows, but never add days at either end.
Alt+Home and Alt+End go to the start and the end of the plan.
Today (or Ctrl+Shift+T) jumps to today’s date.
To find a particular task, select its row and press Ctrl+Shift+F5, or right-click it and choose Show task in timeline.
Ctrl+Shift+= and Ctrl+Shift+- zoom the timeline in and out, one step at a time, as the Hour to Year buttons do.

The plain mouse wheel scrolls up and down through the tasks.

How to move a task by dragging#

At Day, Week or Hour zoom:

Drag the middle of a bar to move the task. It keeps its length. A dashed outline shows where it will land. If you drop it on a day off, it moves to the next working day.
Drag the right-hand end to make the task longer or shorter.
Drag the left-hand end to change the start and keep the end where it is.
Double-click an empty spot in a task’s row (Day or Hour zoom) to move the task to start on that day.
Press Esc while dragging to cancel.

At Month zoom and coarser, bars can’t be dragged. Zoom in first.

Some bars can’t be moved, and Desktop Plan says why:

A task that waits for another: its start comes from its links. Change the link’s lag instead.
A phase: its dates come from the tasks inside it.

How to link tasks on the chart#

Click a bar, then drag from the small circle at one of its ends onto another bar. The circle you start from and the half of the other bar you let go over decide the kind of link. Over the left half you join the other task’s start, and over the right half its finish. A label beside the pointer names the link before you let go. See Linking tasks.

Right-click menus on the chart#

Right-click a bar to change its colour or the colour of its progress, or to remove all its links.

Right-click an arrow to change the type of link or remove it.

Right-click a baseline or actual strip to change that strip’s colour.

How to choose which dates the chart shows#

Normally the chart runs from the day your first task starts to the day your last task finishes. To show a fixed period instead:

Click Setup timeline on the ribbon (or View › Timeline window…). From and To show the dates the timeline covers now.
Type a different From or To date, or both. Show the full timeline unticks itself.
Click Apply.

Anything after the To date is greyed out. Tick Show the full timeline again to go back: the boxes then show your first task’s start and your last task’s finish. The choice is saved with the plan. On a plan you can only view, you can still choose the dates, but the choice lasts only until you close the plan.

The critical path#

The critical path is the chain of tasks that decides when the project finishes. If any of them slips, the finish date slips. Click Critical path on the view row to outline those tasks and their arrows in red.

In Oakfield Villa Build every task is on one chain, so they are all critical. In a plan where some work runs side by side, only the longest chain is. Tasks off it have some room to slip, called float.

To see only critical tasks, click Filter on the view row and tick Critical only. To see the figures, switch on the Late start, Late finish, Total float, Free slack and Critical columns in Settings › Columns.

The critical path is part of the licensed version. Without a licence the button is greyed out.