What is Gantter

Gantter is a FREE web-based project management tool. You can think of it as a web-based Microsoft Project. It helps you to:

• plan and estimate your project (duration, work, cost) by splitting the project into a number of tasks
• review you plan using Gantt chart
• manage project resources (work or material) and assign them to tasks
• manage project calendars (set working times, add holidays etc)
• manage resource calendars (working times, vacations etc)
• control your project's progress by setting % complete values to each task
• review critical tasks

Just like in MS Project you start by adding tasks, setting dependencies between them (Finish-to-Start, Start-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish, Start-to-Start), indenting them to create summary tasks. Then you add resources, modify their calendars if necessary, assign resources to tasks.

Gantter also supports more advanced features:

• Plan your project either from its start date or its finish date
• Mark tasks as milestones
• Set task deadlines
• Set task constraints: As soon as possible, As late as possible, Start no earlier than, Start no later than, Finish no earlier than, Finish no later than, Must start on, Must finish on
• Set task types: Fixed Units, Fixed Duration or Fixed Work, set Effort driven flag when applicable.
• Set lag time and lead time between tasks.

Users familiar with MS Project can quickly get started with Gantter.

Gantter saves the result in MS Project's XML format, which means that you can open Gantter projects in MS Project. Gantter also supports importing projects created in MS Project.

All you need to run Gantter is a modern web-browser. Gantter does not require any software to be installed on your computer. Gantter does not require any additional components to be installed in your browser.

Tasks

A task is an activity that needs to be accomplished within a defined period of time. Gantter allows you to add unlimited number of tasks.

Gantter helps you to group tasks by supporting summary tasks. Summary tasks just group their subtasks, they do not have their own duration, cost etc, Gantter calculates their properties from the properties of their subtasks.

To add a task, just click a cell in Tasks view and enter the task's name (for example, Paint the wall). To insert a task above the current one use Actions->Insert, or just hit Insert button on your keyboard.

To add a summary task add a regular task and indent (Actions->Indent in the main menu) those tasks you want to be its subtasks.

Tasks are shown on the Gantt chart depending on their properties.

	Name	Description
	Task	On the Gantt chart tasks are represented as blue bars
	Critical task	Critical tasks are shown in red color (when View->Highlight Critical Tasks is checked)
	Summary task	Summary tasks are black bars
	Milestone	Milestones are shown with their finish dates

Gantt chart

Gantt chart illustrates your project's schedule. Each task is represented as a bar, the location of the bar in the chart depends on the task's Start and Finish dates.

You can zoom in (or zoom out) the Gantt chart. Use View->Zoom in (or View->Zoom out) for that:

Resources

Resources are people, equipment, facilities or anything else required for the completion of a task.

In Gantter you manage resources on Resources view and then assign them to tasks on Tasks view.

To add a resource, just click a cell in Resources view and enter the resource name (for example, Developer).

Gantter supports 2 types of resources:

To assign a resource to a task, click on the task, open Task Properties dialog (Actions->Properties) and check the checkbox next to the resource you want to assign.

Resource name is shown on the Gantt chart next to the task the resource is assigned to.

Calendars

Holidays, corporate and other events have significant impact on your project schedule. Also you team may not dedicate its whole working time to your project (due to other projects, for example). To let Gantter know about this you add or edit Calendars on Calendars view.

To help you get started for each new project Gantter creates 3 predefined calendars: Standard, 24-Hours and Night Shift. Standard calendar is assigned to your project by default but you can both edit the calendar or change the assignment.

Use Calendar Properties dialog to edit a calendar. You can set specific working time for a date or edit defaults for each weekday.

Individual resources may have their own working times as well. In Gantter you assign a calendar to a resource and then override days in the calendar for the resource when editing the resource using Resource Properties dialog.

Task dependencies

In most cases you want your task to start after the previous task finishes. This is called Finish-to-Start dependency and is set when you select both tasks and click Actions->Link.

Note that there are multiple ways to select tasks:

• Press Ctrl and then click the first cell (containing the task number) of each task you want to select.
• Press Shift and then click the first cell (containing the task number) of a task. This selects a range of tasks between (and including) the current task and the task you've clicked.
• Press Shift and then press Up or Down arrow button on your keyboard to select the current task and task(s) above (or below) the current one.

When editing task properties you can set other task dependencies between tasks:

	Name	Description
	Finish-to-Start	A task cannot start until its predecessor finishes
	Finish-to-Finish	A task cannot finish until its predecessor finishes
	Start-to-Start	A task cannot start until its predecessor starts
	Start-to-Finish	A task cannot finish until its predecessor starts

Task duration

By default, all new tasks have duration of 1 day. You can easily change this duration by changing the value in Duration column. Duration can be entered in days (by specifying "d" after the value), hours ("h"), weeks ("w"), months ("m").

Examples: 1.5h, 3d, 1.23d, 2w, 4.5w, 1m, 3.1m

Users of non-English versions of Gantter should specify a value followed by the first letter of the corresponding word in their language.

Lags

Lag is a delay between two tasks that have a dependency.

The following illustration shows a 2 days lag between two tasks having Finish-to-Start dependency:

The following illustration shows a -2 days lag (negative) between two tasks having Finish-to-Start dependency:

You can specify Lag value in percent (lead time), for example, 50%. This means setting the lag to be equal to a half of predecessor's duration.

Task constraints

Task constraints allow you to add additional scheduling rules to a task. Task constraints are set on Advanced tab of Task Properties dialog:

Task types and Effort driven scheduling

Duration, Resource Units and Work depend on each other. This dependency can be expressed in the following formula: Work = Duration * Units. Task types define how Duration, Units and Work change when you change one of these values.

Task types are set on Advanced tab of Task Properties dialog:

For Fixed units or Fixed work task types you can set Effort driven flag (the flag is set by default). This flag defines whether Work should remain constant when you add or remove resources to a task.

Task deadlines

Task deadlines do not affect the schedule. You can set a deadline for a task in Task Properties dialog:

Task deadlines are shown on the Gantt chart in red:

Gantter notifies you if the task has to be scheduled so that it finishes later than its deadline.

Planning from Finish date

Sometimes you know the date your project has to finish and don't have a fixed start date for it yet. Gantter allows you to plan your project from its Finish date.

Please note:

• When you add a task to a project planned from its Start date the task's constraint is set to As soon as possible by default.
• When you add a task to a project planned from its Finish date the task's constraint is set to As late as possible by default.

Review critical tasks

Some tasks allow delays, so that your project is not delayed if the task has a delay. But some tasks cannot be delayed, otherwise the whole project would be delayed. Such tasks are critical tasks. Gantter allows you to see critical tasks on the Gantt chart.

Make sure that View->Highlight Critical Tasks is checked:

Critical tasks are shown in red, while non-critical are blue:

Estimate project cost

With Gantter it's easy to know the total cost of your project. Here's what you need to do:

• Set Cost for each resource. Use Resource Properties dialog or just update the corresponding cell in the list of resources. Cost for Work resources is set according to their hourly rate, while Material resources are set according to their cost.
• Make sure that Cost column is visible in Tasks view (check View->Cost Column).
• Gantter has automatically calculated the cost for each task according to their resources assigned.
• When necessary you can manually adjust the cost of each task by updating the corresponding Cost cell.
• To know the total cost of your project make sure that View->Show Root Summary Task is checked. The root summary task shows all totals, including total Cost.

Update project progress

Let's assume that you have successfully planned your project and it is now being implemented. At some point you may need to know what's the overall project progress. You know that some tasks are complete, some tasks are half complete, some tasks aren't even started. Gantter allows you to enter % complete information for each task and get the overall % complete.

• Make sure that % Complete column is visible in Tasks view (check View->% Complete Column).
• Update % Complete cell for each task.
• To know the overall % Complete of your project make sure that View->Show Root Summary Task is checked. The root summary task shows the overall % Complete.

Gantt chart also shows the progress for each task:

Regional Settings

By default Gantter is configured so that it shows weeks starting from Sunday, date format is Month/Day/Year, time is shown using AM/PM values and currency is USD ($).

You can easily change these values by using Project Properties dialog (Project->Properties).

Keyboard shortcuts

Save project/Export to MS Project

To save your current project choose Project->Save (download) or click Save (download) button in the top right corner. Gantter outputs your project as a file to your browser. Your browser suggests you to save the file on your hard-drive. Select the necessary folder and click Save.

Gantter saves your project in XML format that can be imported into MS Project. So commands Save (download) and Export to MS Project (download) output the same file.

Open project

To open a recently saved project use Project->Open. Choose a file on your hard-drive and click Open.

Import from MS Project

Gantter can import MS Project files (.mpp) and files saved in MS Project's XML format. To import, use Project->Import from MS Project. Choose the file and click Open.

About

Gantter is a personal project of Volodymyr Mazepa, IT project manager from Ukraine. See my email address in Gantter (Help->About) and feel free to contact me on any question.