Tag Archives: gantt chart

timecontrol

Wait. TimeControl has GANTT Charts?

TimeControl GANTT, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisIt’s not really news.  TimeControl has had a GANTT / Barchart view as part of the product for many years.

In fact, there are a couple of places to see a barchart view in TimeControl.  The most available is often from each users MyAccount area where they can see their own tasks in either a Calendar or Barchart (GANTT) view.  For TimeControl users who have been given access to the Reports / GANTT view, they can view a barchart of their any charges they have been given access to.

For TimeControl Online users who have access to TimeControl Project, there are much more extensive methods of seeing a GANTT of either charge codes or Tasks.  In the case of tasks, there are easy to use drag and drop options to add, move, delete or edit tasks right in the barchart.  For charge codes, that’s a bit more restrictive as the charge code values for example the start and stop times might be critical to numerous other processes for both Project Management and Finance. The data is still viewable but changing the key data is controlled more stringently for Charge-Code lines than for Task lines.

There are numerous options for display including adjusting the visible fields, adjusting the scale and filtering of course but there’s even more.  The GANTT view includes an optional resource capacity heat map as displayed above.

A barchart view is only one way to look at data and, the more activities there are on the screen, the less productive this type of display is.  But that’s only one of the many ways TimeControl and TimeControl Project can display this kind of information and where the volume of data is appropriate, it can be the best graphical view possible.

If you’re interested in more project type views or in what TimeControl Project adds to TimeControl, see project.timecontrol.com.

timecontrol, TimeControl Reporting

Barcharting your progress in TimeControl

MyAccount_Gantt2Version 7 of TimeControl brought a completely new display type to our viewer.  A barchart or Gantt chart can show tasks or assignments in a barchart view similar to most project scheduling systems.  Invented by Henry Gantt in the 1910’s, this type of display shows activities horizontally across a range of dates.  It is, by far, the most popular display of task data.

In TimeControl, almost everything refers to a date so charting our information across a Gantt chart is somewhat natural for us.  HMS personnel have been working with project management tools since the 1980s.  We’re very familiar with barchart displays around here.

So the Gantt chart’s arrival to TimeControl is like welcoming home an old friend.  You can find the view in the Report tab and Resource Assignments tab of your My Account Area.

There are many options in the Gantt chart view but at their core, you have 3 options.  A Gantt chart can be based on the Project list, the Activity list or the Assignment list.  You can set filters to show only some of the information and make and save as many of each type of view as you wish.  Once you’ve created the view, you can export it to Excel, PDF or an image fit for printing or embedding elsewhere.

Given our familiarity with Gantt charts in general, we expect this aspect of TimeControl to evolve continuously in the coming releases of the product as we add more and more flexibility to creating views and reports in this format.