Gantt charts are a great tool for visualizing project timeline, assisting project managers in managing their projects. JustDo's Gantt have all the functionality needed in order to manage your project easily, making sure nothing falls between the cracks.
You can easily see at one glance how your project is progressing using the Current date line - a green vertical line indicating the current date on the Gantt. You can set the Gantt column width, click the +/- buttons and drag the column content area in order to adjust the viewing area.
If you want to view a section of the Gantt that is not showing on screen, you can also use the button at the top right of the Gantt to jump to the date of the selected task, and use the "today" button next to it, to jump back to today.
It is recommended (yet, not required) to use the Gantt and its respective columns in the zoom-in view of a specific project or sub-project.
If you want to print your Gantt chart, use the "Download as PNG" option of the print menu.
Set-up
In order to use the Gantt in JustDo, an Admin needs to enable the extension "Gantt" by clicking the "Configure this JustDo" option under the settings button. Note that this extension replaces the old extensions: Gantt Charts, Grid Gantt, Dependencies and Task Duration Field.
Related extension that may be of interest is Projects' Health
Enabling this extension will add fields that can be displayed as part of the Grid, tabs to the bottom pane, Gantt section to the context menu and an option to the settings menu:
- Additional columns that can be added to the Grid
- Gantt - contains the Gantt graphical representation.
- Duration - holds the task duration in working days.
- Gantt Milestone - when set to "yes" indicates that the task is a milestone. Can be manually set or by clicking the option "Set as a Gantt Milestone" in the context menu (right click on the task).
- Predecessors - contains that task(s) number(s) that must end before this task can start.
- Frozen - when set to "yes" indicates that the task is manually scheduled and will not move according to its dependencies. Can be manually set or by clicking the option "Freeze start date and end date" in the context menu (right click on the task).
- % complete - contains the percentage of the completion of the task, can be manually edited, automatically set to 100% when task state is Done.
- The below columns are available only when a baseline is selected:
- Basket Start Date - holds the earliest start date of any of the task's child tasks
- Basket End Date - holds the latest start date of any of the task's child tasks
- Baseline Start Date - holds the start date for the task based on the selected baseline
- Baseline End Date - holds the end date for the task based on the selected baseline
- An additional tab of the task pane "Dependencies"
This tab shows the selected task's predecessor and successor tasks - Additional tabs of the lower pane:
- Dependencies - lists tasks that you can start working on and that are predecessors of other tasks (tasks that are blocking other tasks) and your tasks that are waiting for others to complete their tasks (tasks that are blocked by others' tasks)
- Baselines - lists all available baselines, where you can select the one to be displayed as well as delete your own saved baselines.
- Gantt section of the context menu - the context menu is displayed when you right click a task, under the Gantt section you will have the options to set a task as a milestone, freeze its start and end dates, save and display a baseline.
- New Set Working days option in the settings menu - to set the JustDo workdays, work hours and holidays.
Please note that in order to define specific workdays, workhours and holidays for individuals the "Calendar" Extension must be turned on.
Planning your projects using the Gantt
The Gantt is composed of tasks with start and end dates, each task is shown on the Gantt as a box starting at its start date and ending at its end date. Rescheduling a task can be done by changing the start/end dates in the grid or by dragging the task on the Gantt.
Parent tasks show on the Gantt chart as wider blue boxes which the represent baskets, or red if they, or any child task, are part of the critical path. The start and end dates of the basket are automatically calculated based on the task child tasks. Auto calculated dates will be indicated with a gray rectangle at that top right of the grid cell. You can also define manual dates for baskets, if both sets of dates exist the cell will be marked with a black rectangle. A tooltip of the cell indicates which dates are showing and in case of a dual set will also hold the additional date.
The duration field holds the task duration in working days. If one enters the task start date and duration, the end date will be calculated accordingly and vice versa.
When calculating the end date, JustDo takes into consideration the entire JustDo workdays and holidays configuration as well as the task owner's workdays and holidays. See: How to Configure Workdays and Holidays
Tasks can be marked as milestones, either by clicking the option "Set as a Gantt Milestone" in the context menu (right click on the task) or by manually setting the field "Milestone" to yes. When a task is marked as a Milestone:
- Its duration is automatically set to zero and its end date is set to its start date
- It is graphically shown as a diamond
- Tasks that are part of the critical path to the milestone are shown in red
Each task, a milestone or not, can also have a due date. The due date usually mark the deadline by which the task must be completed or the latest date the milestone must be achieved. The task's due date is marked as a down arrow in the Gantt.
Dependencies - you can easily determine that a task is dependent on another task, or group of tasks. This can be done graphically by dragging the circle shown at the beginning/end of the task to the beginning/end of its dependent task, or by entering the task ID in the "Predecessors" column. You can even define lags and leads as needed.
You can read more about all the dependency types and options that are supported in JustDo in the following article: Gantt Dependencies
Please note that when a task schedule is changed, its dependent tasks will be rescheduled accordingly.
As mentioned above, when selecting a task, its predecessors and successors show up in its "Dependencies" tab in the task pane
At any point in time, one can see all the tasks that they own that are blocking other tasks as well as those that are blocking them from starting their own, in the Dependencies tab at the bottom pane.
Once all dependencies of a task are completed (state is "Done"), the owner of that task will receive a notification in the chat: "All dependencies are fulfilled. You can start working on this task."
Some of your tasks may have external commitments and hence must be scheduled for a specific date. Those tasks should not be automatically rescheduled based on their dependencies. In these cases, you can freeze the start and end date of the task, and this task will only move manually by entering new data in the appropriate grid columns. To freeze a task, use the "Freeze start date and end date" option in the context menu (right click on the task) or set the field "Frozen" to yes.
Once you defined all tasks and dependencies, there are tasks leading to the milestones that if they will end later than planned will delay the milestone - these define a critical path for the milestone. The tasks on any critical path are marked in red and the ids of the milestones this task is critical for are shown when hovering over it.
It is highly recommended to have a milestone "Project end" at the end of the project in order to identify the critical path for the entire project.
Tracking your project progress using the Gantt
As your project progresses, you would want to keep track of the progress of each of the tasks. The state field should hold the stage of the task: Pending (not started yet), In-progress, Done etc. Yet, there is another field that can be used % Complete - it should hold the percentage of the completion progress of a task. The percentage of the task completion can be manually entered into the "% complete" column. Changing the task's state to Done will update the % complete to 100% automatically. The completion percentage is marked as a black line inside the task box. Using the completion indication and the current date vertical line, it is easy to see which tasks are progressing as scheduled and which are delayed or ahead of schedule.
The project scheduling may change over time as work progresses and it is important to be able to compare your original plan to the current plan. In longer projects you may want to track scheduling changes for multiple points in time, for example every quarter.
This is where the Baseline feature comes into play. You can save the current schedule of a project, sub project or a group of projects as a baseline under a specific name. And at any point in time in the future select to display it alongside your current scheduling and view the differences. The baseline is displayed as a set of gray lines under the current schedule.
To save a baseline for a task and its sub-tree, right click it and select the option "Save a Baseline" from the context menu to save it under a specific name. The current date is automatically added to the name, yet you can choose to remove it. Once a task has a baseline saved an anchor icon is displayed on the Gantt chart. To display a baseline use the option "Display a Baseline" from the context menu.
You can also view, rename and select the appropriate baseline to display from the "Baselines" tab at the bottom pane. Deleting a baseline can only be done by the user who created it or by an Admin.
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