Free Gantt Chart Excel Templates
If you’re a project manager, regardless of the industry you’re working in, Gantt charts can be a very useful tool for managing your projects. Don’t want the hassle of creating your own Gantt chart from scratch? No problem! We provide several premade Gantt chart templates in Excel.
We’ll show you each of them, including the features they have. You can download them for free. If this sounds like something that could help better organize your day, keep reading!
Why use a Gantt chart template in Excel?
Templates are a great way to save your precious time because you won’t stare too long at an empty document. You can focus more on the content than anything else, such as formatting. But why Gantt chart templates in Excel?
One of the reasons is because Excel is one of the most accessible and easy-to-use software programs. There are plenty out there for creating Gantt charts, but creating Gantt charts using this spreadsheet app is probably the most familiar way to do it for most of us. Everyone in your team will also be able to collaborate easily because of their familiarity with Excel.
In addition, Excel can integrate with other apps and services to help you work more efficiently. You can import data from project management apps such as Jira and Trello to Excel, then use it to create a Gantt chart visualization. There are also integration tools available that automate the import process, such as Coupler.io.
Coupler.io makes importing data from multiple sources into Excel, Google Sheets, or BigQuery easy without coding! Check out the complete list of Microsoft Excel integrations supported by Coupler.io.
How to create a Gantt chart in Excel from our template
In the next section, you will see a list of Gantt chart templates for Excel.
They range from essential to complex Gantt charts and charts with different granularity: hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly.
To create a Gantt chart from our Excel templates:
- Go to File => Save As => Download a copy.
- Open the downloaded XLSX file.
- Read the getting started instructions in the “Readme” worksheet.
- Start inputting your project data and save your file as an Excel document.
It’s so simple to use our templates. You only need basic Excel skills such as how to copy-paste a row. If you want more control over the formatting, such as changing the bar colors, you only need to understand basic conditional formatting in Excel.
Automated Gantt chart templates in Excel (FREE download)
Our Excel Gantt chart templates below are fully automated. All you have to do is provide some inputs. The bars will update automatically, showing a visualization of your project schedule. See the list below. 👇
Basic Gantt chart Excel template
Download: Basic Gantt chart Excel template
This Microsoft Excel Gantt chart template contains the essential elements needed to create a Gantt chart. It has basic features to visualize your project tasks in a daily timeline.
There are no progress tracking, subtasks, dependencies, and resource management features. However, this template is powerful enough to visualize your project schedules. You can see all the works mapped out and how long the whole project will take.
The daily timeline shows only workdays (Monday to Friday). You can change the range of the dates displayed in the timeline area by using the scroll bar on the top-right. As the timeline shows daily granularity, this template is best for planning short-term projects.
Weekly timeline Gantt chart Excel template
Download: Weekly timeline Gantt chart Excel template
This template is excellent for short and medium-term projects. By default, it gives you a weekly timeline that covers one year, with the scroll bar at the top-right allowing view periods up to four years long. The bars show the total weeks each task will take based on the start dates and end dates you inputted.
Monthly timeline Gantt chart excel template
Download: Monthly timeline Gantt chart Excel template
A monthly timeline template is a great way to stay on top of your projects. The high-level overview allows you to know what needs to be done for the next few months. It can also guide planning and mapping smaller tasks, so you never miss any deadlines.
This template has a monthly timeline spanning three years, but you can remove or add more years as needed. You can also use the scroll bar to see a range of future years in the timeline area.
Hourly schedule Gantt chart Excel template
Download: Hourly Gantt chart Excel template
This project schedule Gantt chart Excel template with an hourly timeline can help you plan daily activities in small time increments. Use this template to plan short-duration tasks and map them to a timeline under 24 hours. You can also use it for hourly labor scheduling.
The bar colors in this template are based on the assignee name. Each person has a different bar color, making it easy to spot when someone has multiple tasks at the same time.
Project management Gantt chart Excel template
Download: Project management Gantt chart Excel template
This professional Gantt chart Excel template for project management has quite valuable features to help you manage and track the progress of your projects, such as:
- You can organize tasks into phases.
- You can input which member of the team member is responsible for each task.
- You can enter the completion of each task by inputting a value in the % completed column. By doing this, the pieces you’ve done will also have a different color.
- There are also vertical lines that indicate the current date. Thus, by looking at the bars, you can immediately see what should have been done by today’s date. Some tasks that are behind schedule will be easy to spot, so you can take action to get them back on track.
In addition, this project management Excel Gantt chart template shows how to use the following formulas to calculate the start date and duration of each phase based on its tasks’:
- Start date of a phase:
=MIN(all_of_its_tasks_start_dates)- Number of workdays:
=NETWORKDAYS(the_phase_start_date,MAX(all_of_its_tasks_end_dates))The above formulas will make the bar of each phase update automatically when its tasks’ durations change. However, you can also enter the start date and duration of each phase manually if you prefer.
Gantt chart Excel template with subtasks
Download: Gantt chart Excel template with subtasks
This template has similar features as the Project Management template above. The main difference is adding subtasks and breaking your project into more detailed and manageable items. The template also shows how to calculate the start date, duration automatically, and % completed of a task based on its subtasks. Still, you can enter them manually if you prefer.
Gantt chart template with dependencies
Download: Gantt chart Excel template with dependencies
In a project, often, there is a task that cannot start until another has been completed. Some tasks may depend on another, and luckily, ensuring task dependencies can be done using formulas in Excel.
This template provides you an easy way to define the predecessor of a task, subtask, even a phase.
The ID column in this template is unique and defined using a formula. You will need to enter a cell reference to an ID value in the DEPENDENCY column to add a dependency.
The bars on the right are based on the START DATE and END DATE columns, calculated automatically based on IND. START DATE, DEPENDENCY, and WORKDAY values.
You can see how a delay in one task might impact the schedules of other tasks, even an entire Phase.
For more detail on how to use this template, please check the Readme worksheet in this template.
Construction Gantt chart Excel template
Download: Gantt chart template in Excel for planning a construction project
Gantt charts are also popular and widely used in the Construction industry. The simplicity and visual clarity of the chart make it a valuable tool for displaying job schedule information.
An activity or a task might be as large and complicated as laying the foundation of a building. It could also be much more straightforward, like erecting formwork for one footing. A Gantt chart helps you estimate and visualize those activities, making delays less likely to occur.
Our Construction Gantt chart template has example tasks defined for a Construction project. When using it, you can use Phases to group tasks based on a category you like. For example, for a high-rise building construction, you can group tasks based on the construction area, floor, responsibility, etc.
The template makes it easy to assign who’s responsible for each task. You can also estimate the cost of a task and enter its actual cost as your work progresses.
Marketing Gantt chart Excel template
Download: Marketing Gantt chart Excel template
This Microsoft Excel Gantt chart template has a monthly timeline with quarterly info and helps plan your long-term marketing project. Just enter your tasks, including their start dates and end dates. You can also group your tasks into phases, such as online marketing, search engine optimization, offline marketing, and so on.
Event planning Gantt chart excel template
Download: Event planning Gantt chart excel template
When planning an event, it doesn’t matter how many people will attend. All events require careful preparation for unforeseen circumstances that could arise on your special day! A Gantt chart can help you ensure everything is organized in advance!
Use this template to plan all activities needed for your big day. It has pre-defined tasks as examples, making it easy for you to follow and add more tasks of your own.
Wrapping up: Gantt chart template in Excel for your project
A Gantt chart is a valuable tool to help you plan, track, and communicate your project schedule. They can also help you identify any potential problems that may arise before it’s too late.
Creating Gantt charts from templates can save you precious time. We hope that the templates in Excel we provide are great for helping you plan out your project in an organized and visually appealing way.
Finally, when you already have a list of tasks in Jira or other project management apps and want to import them in Excel to create a Gantt chart visualization, try Coupler.io. This integration tool also allows you to automate the import process on a schedule to be more efficient!
