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Using Gantt chart summaries to simplify large projects

How to represent the history of a project in Gantt chart form?


It is difficult to summarize a complex project into a simple presentation for senior management or customers, especially when there are many tasks, complex dependencies, long task durations, or interconnected resources.

OnePager Pro, an add-in to Microsoft Project, solves this problem by allowing project managers to represent groups of tasks as a single summary task, creating a “roll-up” of subordinate tasks for presentation purposes. OnePager Pro also allows project managers to take snapshots of a project throughout the lifecycle.

If you don't already have OnePager Pro, download a free trial and follow along with this tutorial.

  1. First, let’s create a view of a complex project. Begin by starting Microsoft Project and flagging the tasks or milestones you want to include in your summary. In this case, we used Flag 20, but you can use any flag column:

    Microsoft Project plan, flagged for import into OnePager Pro.

  2. Next, click the OnePager Pro button on the Microsoft Project toolbar or Add-Ins tab. OnePager will open a wizard to help you summarize your project.

  3. Create a NEW Project View, give your project view a name, and specify a snapshot/status date for your project. Notice that you also have an option to filter your tasks, as we are doing here with Flag 20.

    OnePager Pro import wizard filters tasks from a Microsoft Project schedule.


  4. Click the Create new project view button and you'll see a Gantt chart that looks like this:

    Gantt chart created in OnePager Pro using data from Microsoft Project.

    This project summary groups each task into phases, color-codes by resources, and shows the percent complete for each deliverable. The dotted red line in the middle is the snapshot/status date for the project.


  5. The project summary above is pretty straightforward, but it can be made even simpler. Let's say you want to only have one summary line per phase. This is easy with OnePager Pro's virtual summary task. Just select the tasks you want to summarize with your mouse, right-click, and choose Make into virtual summary task as shown below:

    Easily roll multiple tasks up into a single Gantt bar.


  6. Once you've summarized each phase, you can crop out unused rows and change the size of the Gantt chart to fit your new timeline. When finished, you'll get something like this:

    Summary-level project plan built using OnePager Pro.

    You can now take this OnePager chart and copy and paste it into a PowerPoint for review by senior executives or clients.


  7. The next really powerful feature of OnePager Pro is the ability to update your Gantt chart whenever your project schedule changes. This keeps you from having to rebuild timelines by hand each time you need to make a new presentation.

    To do this, make some changes to your Microsoft Project schedule. Then, click the OnePager Pro button again. This time, instead of creating a new project view, you will want to UPDATE an existing Project View as shown below:

    Easily update an earlier Gantt chart with a refreshed view of your Microsoft Project plan.


  8. Give your project view a new snapshot or status date (in this case, 1/15/2011) as shown above and click New. When you do this, OnePager Pro will refresh your Gantt chart with the latest Microsoft Project data:

    Refreshed view of a Microsoft Project plan using OnePager Pro.

    Notice that the red time cursor has moved from December to January. The percent complete values have also changed from one monthly snapshot to the next.


  9. OnePager Pro's snapshots make it easy to update your project reports from one meeting to the next. You can also browse through previous snapshots to see how your project has changed over time. This is a great tool for post-mortems or for understanding what has changed from one week to the next. To switch between snapshots, you can use the navigation controls on the toolbar as shown below:

    Navigate between versions of your schedule using OnePager Pro.

    You can also pick the snapshot you want to view by going to Project View->Other Snapshots and selecting the status date of your project:

    Select a date-specific status of your project using OnePager Pro.

    Snapshots save you time in updating your Gantt charts, but also make it very easy to track changes to your project schedule. You can create as many snapshots as you'd like with whatever frequency (e.g. monthly, weekly, etc.) makes the most sense.


This article shows you how you can use OnePager Pro with Microsoft Project to represent large projects in summary form, while communicating changes over the course of the project in a consistent format.

Using OnePager Pro will allow you to create dynamic, informative project presentations with the click of a button, while eliminating the need to rebuild your presentations by hand every time your project schedule changes.

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






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