The worksheet helps you to draw a Gantt chart. A Gantt chart is useful for project planning and monitoring.
At the Excel Menu (For Excel 2007, go to Add-ins first)
Choose ProcessMA > Quality Tools > Gantt Chart > New
Setting up the Gantt Chart for your project:
Enter the overall start date of project in Cell C1
Select the calendar interval in Cell D1
Select the definition of non-working days in Cell E1
Create a task:
A. In ID (Column A), enter the serial number of the task
B. In Task (Column B), enter a description of the task
C. In Start Date (Column C), enter the date the task begins
D. In End Date (Column D), enter the date the task ends
E. In Duration (Column E), enter the number of days the task will take
F. In Completion (Column F), enter how much the task has been completed, in percent
G. In Milestone (Column G), enter ‘Yes’ if the task is a milestone. Otherwise, leave it blank
H. In Remarks (Column H), enter miscellaneous information about the task
I. In Predecessor (Column I), enter the ID of the task which must be completed before this task can begin. To Multiple entries must be separated by commas (,)
H.
The Gantt chart will be displayed in Columns L:IV
Draw timeline on the chart directly :
Instead of entering the start and end date of each task in Column C:D, you can alternatively specify the timeline directly on the Gantt chart in Columns L:V. To do so, type 'S' in the appropriate cell to indicate the start of the task and type 'E' in the appropriate cell to indicate the end of the task. The timeline will automatically be drawn on the Gantt chart and the start and end date updated in Columns B:C
Updating the Gantt chart
The Gantt chart needs to be updated manually by choosing ProcessMA > Quality Tools > Gantt Chart > Update in the following scenarios:
(A) Changes in predecessor
(B)
Changes in master and sub tasks
(C)
Update multiple task at once (E.g. copy and paste details of multiple tasks onto Gantt Chart)
Create a subtask:
You can create master task and sub task by manipulating the task IDs. The method is similar to standard numbering system. For example, task IDs ‘1.1’, ‘1.2’, ‘1.3’ are sub tasks to task ID ‘1’. Similarly, task ID ‘1.1.1’, ‘1.1.2’, ‘1.1.3’ are sub tasks to task ID ‘1.1’. Note that tasks must be arranged together and in ascending order. Note: You may need to manually update the Gantt chart by choosing ProcessMA > Quality Tools > Gantt Chart > Update
Determine slack and conflict:
If you have predecessor task in your project, you need to update your Gantt chart to determine the slack and conflict. If there is any slack or conflict for any task, it will be displayed in Log (Column J) For example:
(A)
'S – 10': This task has a predecessor task which must be completed before it can start. However, there is a slack of 10 days from the end of the predecessor task and its start. Therefore, you can consider to let this task start 10 days earlier.
(B) 'C– 5': This task has a predecessor task which must be completed before it can start. However, this task is planned to start 5 days before its predecessor is completed. Therefore, you need to postpone this task by 5 days to resolve the conflict.
(C)
'U': This task is a master task and there is a mismatch between its timeline and its sub tasks’ timeline. The conflict may arise if any sub tasks has an earlier start date or a later end date than their master task.
The figure below shows a Gantt chart drawn using ProcessMA.
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