Create Gantt Chart in Google Sheets

In this article we will walk through the steps to create a Gantt chart (like the one below) in Google sheets.

We will use the following sample data for creating Gantt charts in this article.

1. Create a table in Google sheets with the data as shown above. Make sure that you have created columns for Milestones/Tasks, Status, Start and End Date and Duration. 
2. To calculate the duration, use the formula to find the difference between columns D & C e.g. D2-C2.
3. To add a Gantt chart, select the Chart option from the Insert menu at the top. Select Chart Type as Bar chart and Stacking as “Standard” option as shown below

4. To add data to the chart, select the data range e.g. in this case it is A1:E6. 

5. Configure the Y axis and Series to show the appropriate data as shown below

6. When the chart is plotted, its date range is not bounded.  To hide the axis range which doesn’t contain data, we need to  add the bounds to the Horizontal axis. To do that, first we find the minimum or starting value (for start date) to show in the chart. To find the minimum value for the horizontal axis, go back to the table and change the format of the “Start Date” column to numeric format. Copy the minimum value from the Start Date column. 

7. To add the bound to the axis, enter the value (slightly lower than) the value obtained from the above step as shown below in the minimum value option under Horizontal axis. Once the value has been added, change the format of the “Start Date” column to “Date”  type again. Also, change the “Number Format "under the same menu to “Date and Time” to show the horizontal axis data in date format. 

8. To show only the duration of each milestone (as steps) in the chart, we need to change the “ “Fill Opacity” value of the “Start Date” and “End Date” to “0” as shown below. 

 

9. The completed chart is shown below. You can customize the “Start Date”, “Duration” and “End Date” series to show the data labels as shown in the chart below.