Gantt Module

Owned by Anna Ciepłota
Last updated: Nov 27, 2023
4 min read

Introduction

The Gantt module is all you need to manage your project or portfolio. Use it to prepare and visualize your project schedule or roadmap, monitor and control the execution, and generate reports by aggregating your task data or using advanced export features.

The Gantt module includes four key elements:

  • Customizable task list (Work Breakdown Structure - WBS)

  • Timeline with tasks and dependencies that visualizes your work items and includes auto-scheduling.

  • Resources panel that shows your resources’ workload.

  • Infobar that highlights the most important information related to your project, e.g. Overdue tasks, Critical path, Dependencies, and Milestones.

Use the Gantt to show you project schedules or to visualize your product roadmap:

Main features 

The table below lists the main features of the Gantt module:

Feature

Description

Feature

Description

Box switcher

Navigate between Boxes, change the currently viewed Box or narrow the scope to a Sub-Box.

Editor slider

Allows you to carry out operations bulk operations on tasks

Scenario mode

Try different variants of your plan, compare the results, and find the best one.

Add task

Use this option to add tasks by:

  • Creating monday items and basic tasks

Use this option to access the scope definition page:

  • Manage scope definition

Data

Add the following features to all tasks within the Box scope:

  • Organize tasks — change the order of your tasks in an ascending or descending way, based on fields added as columns using the Column Views.

    • Scheduling mode — enable auto-scheduling or plan your task manually

    • Baselines — create and display time baselines for your tasks

    • Task grouping — group your tasks and count tasks in each group

View

Change the view options to include more information in the Gantt chart or show additional features:

  • Layout — adjust the row height so that you can fit more tasks on the screen and show a larger portion of your schedule. You can also add grid lines to distinguish between dates.

    • Baselines — set project baselines to compare initial and actual schedules

    • Period warning — show the position of parent tasks calculated based on its children tasks

    • Progress — show task progress directly on the taskbar

    • Critical path — highlight tasks on the critical path that determine project duration

    • Overdue

    • Editor slider

Taskbar

Show task information using labels added to the task on the timeline or change the task colors based on status or manually:

  • Gantt module - task information on the timeline - manage what task details are shown on the Gantt chart

    • Other scope info - show/hide an icon indicating that a given task is in multiple Boxes with their own separate scopes

  • Task color

Dependencies

Visualize two types of dependencies using Gantt:

  • Strong dependencies

  • Soft dependencies

Show / Hide Resources

Use the Resources panel to see the workload of each resource (assignee).

When enabled, an additional icon with Resources settings will appear:

Effort modes:

  • Original estimate

  • Remaining estimate

  • Story points

Aggregations:

  • Daily

  • Weekly

  • Monthly

Column views

Customise the task list to display available fields as columns. You can save your Column Views and mark it as favorite.

Column configuration

Configure the columns the way you need. Configuration options depend on the type of field added to the view.

Manage column view

Add or remove columns within the task list. When you add or remove fields the current Column View is modified but will not be saved automatically.

Undo button

Undo button becomes available after a user made changes.

Undo the following actions:

  • Resizing the task on Gantt

  • Moving the task on Gantt

Shortcut: ctrl/cmd + z

Filters

Add your favorite filters to the header and filter the list tasks to see only the items which you are interested in. There are two types of filters:

  • Quick filters

  • Date range

Search box

Use the text search box to filter out unwanted information.

Timeline zoom

Zoom in and out, move to the current date, or fit all your tasks on the timeline.

Timeline settings

Show additional elements on the timeline:

  • Markers

  • Week numbers

Task structure

Indent and outdent your tasks manually or move them up and down the list. The manual structure might be in conflict with the active structure builders in which case a warning will be displayed.

Edit tasks

There are multiple ways to edit tasks in BigPicture.

Delete tasks

You can delete the tasks from the list in which case the task will be also removed from the connected tool.

Convert tasks to milestones

Milestones can be interpreted as:

  • Markers of reaching an identifiable stage in any task or project.

  • Software release life cycle states.

On the timeline, milestones are represented as diamonds. The milestone duration is always one day.

Infobar

Show more information about your tasks:

Mini-map

Enable a mini-map to navigate through the whole timeline with a single click.

Editor slider

Allows you to carry out operations bulk operations on tasks:

  • Delete (the trash icon)

  • Create/Delete a baseline for selected tasks

  • Change the Period mode (regardless of the relationship of selected tasks)

  • Convert to Milestone

  • Set up manual color

For an individual task, you can also move it within a tree (indent, outdent, move up, move down) and access the Edit pop-up.