Reading the Gantt chart and changing the timeline scale
Day, week, month, and year zoom levels, what each element on the chart means, and how to export the timeline.
Changing the scale
The timeline scale control offers Day, Week, Month, and Year. Day gives you the most detail and the widest chart; Year compresses a multi-year programme into one screen. Changing scale keeps your position, so you do not have to find your way back to where you were looking.
The task name column stays frozen while you scroll horizontally, which is what makes a two-year timeline readable.
What the chart is showing you
Bars are tasks, drawn from their start to their end date. Diamonds are milestones, which have no duration. A vertical line marks today, so the distance between where a bar ends and where that line sits is the thing to look at.
Where a task is carrying a delay, the chart shows the shift rather than quietly redrawing the bar in its new position, so the difference between the plan and the current position stays visible. Once the Actual timeline property is on the project, a thin line under each bar shows when work really started and finished, dashed while it is still running.
A parent task stretches to cover its subitems, so a parent bar always spans everything inside it.
Exporting the timeline
The Gantt exports to PNG or PDF. PNG is the one to use for a slide or a status email; PDF for anything that needs to be printed or attached to a report.
Other views export in the formats that suit them, including Excel and CSV for anything table-shaped.
Which plans have the Gantt
The Gantt view is available on Basic and above. Starter has the table and list views.