Project Timeline Presentations Using Excel

Learn how to create presentation-ready timelines of your projects that are based on an Excel spreadsheet

If you keep track of project plans in Excel, it's difficult to get your schedule into a PowerPoint format for presentations. It's easy to make mistakes transferring your schedule from Excel to PowerPoint. When your schedule changes, you have to rebuild your PowerPoint presentation by hand.

With OnePager Express, you can eliminate the difficulties of trying to create a PowerPoint presentation of your project. OnePager Express is a Microsoft Excel add-in. It imports your schedule from Excel and quickly creates presentation-ready timelines and Gantt charts.

If you don’t have OnePager Express, download a free trial and follow along. Here’s how it works:

1. The first step is to determine how much of your Excel schedule you actually want to present. Once you’ve decided, OnePager Express makes it easy to filter your schedule down to only the most important tasks. The highlighted column here places a simple "yes" or "no" next to the tasks that should (or should not) be included in your presentation:
   
   



2. Now that your filter column is set up, you're ready to launch OnePager Express. Just click on the OnePager Express button on the Microsoft Excel toolbar or add-ins tab to start the easy import wizard:
   
   


Here, you can name your project report, specify the Excel column you're using to filter your schedule, and give your report a snapshot (or status) date. When you're ready, click the Next button.


3. The next screen of the wizard lets you pick which Excel columns you want to use in your project report. For example, you might choose to map the "Start Date" column from your spreadsheet to the start date prompt in the OnePager Express wizard.
   
   



4. Now, just click the Create new project view button and you’ll get a PowerPoint-ready presentation of your schedule, completely based on your Excel spreadsheet:
   
   



5. You can make some adjustments to your timeline if you like. Once you're satisfied, you can copy and paste the chart directly into PowerPoint presentation by clicking on the copy button shown above.
   
   
6. The next time you need to make a presentation on the same project, it's easy to update your chart. OnePager Express remembers the tasks, milestones, and settings from your original report, making it easy to make a quick update before your next meeting.

OnePager Express is a flexible tool, giving you the ability to:

• Change colors, symbols, fonts, and layouts
• Automatically group or color-code by resources, project phase, or any other Microsoft Excel data
• Show baseline dates and durations
• Add comment boxes, text boxes, curtains, or background images

Using OnePager Express will allow you to create easy PowerPoint presentations about your project that are completely based on the data you already have in Excel.

Get started today by downloading a free trial or attending one of our demonstration webinars.