Gantt Charts

Recently we were asked if Gantt charts are going to be added to Intervals. We currently do not have any plans to add Gantt charts.

Our rationale is that a lot of people glaze over when looking at Gantt charts. Project managers and people who know how to create and read Gantt charts love them, but no one else on the team does. I have personally been in many a meeting where Gantt charts were used to make everyone feel good that there was a schedule but few actually understood the project plan and potential risks in the schedule. Most of our customers just don't appreciate what a Critical Path is.

Intervals does not have a lot of scheduling built into it. We did this on purpose because there are so many different ways to build a project schedule...especially with small companies. We found some people use Microsoft Project and other desktop Project Management software, but many use Microsoft Excel, whiteboards, and individual systems to create project schedules. Intervals is flexible and lets you schedule your projects in your own fashion.

This doesn't mean that you can't use Gantt charts in your process. I personally use Microsoft Project to plan out the project relationships and timelines that I manage, but I use Intervals to get the actual work done and track the effort on tasks. Intervals flourishes at managing tasks, tracking time, and managing budgets while giving you detailed analysis of your efforts.

We do have plans to layer in some basic scheduling. It will be more in the form of "Project Calendars" and/or "Resource Calendars" but not full tilt Gantt charts at this time.

Since this post has lived for quite some time I thought a quick update might be good. The milestones / calendar piece launched awhile back and it allows you to create milestones, attach tasks to them, and move an entire project around fairly easily (4:00 Minute Milestones Video Introduction). We use milestones for each "sprint" for lack of a better term and if the current sprint needs to move back we move the milestone and all of the subsequent milestones and tasks move as well. We usually have about four sprints planned out (one quarter) and the milestones piece has added a lot of value for us to group, manage and move tasks in bulk.

On the Gantt chart front, our philosophy has not changed a ton and we do not have plans to add task dependencies (Finish to Finish, Finish to Start, Lag, Lead, etc.) because we believe it adds too much complexity in the interface and the feedback we receive overwhelming supports the current flexible task system. We do plan to address creating a visual way to view all projects and tasks to see where things are scheduled and how far things are along. The visual format is very much like a Gantt chart but in my mind if tasks don't have dependencies and there is no critical path it is not a Gantt chart but I guess that is a matter of debate over definitions. The periscope report is currently scheduled for Q4 this year.

We don't have plans to add the ability to mark a task at a percentage complete at this time but we will add it to the list of potential features to consider. Although there is not a way to mark the percentage complete on a task there are a variety of ways at getting at the project estimated versus actual hours.

- You can view the estimated and actual hours within each project by clicking on the estimated vs. actual link in the left hand navigation within a single project. You can toggle the project estimates versus the task estimates to get an idea about how the tasks look versus the original estimated budget.

- Another item that might be worth a look is the project activity report since it includes task estimates and actuals if you select ‘by task” in the summary drop down menu.

- A somewhat hidden feature is exporting the project listing. If you got to the project listing and click on the export to spreadsheet icon the export includes additional columns of information (Estimated Work, Task Estimates, Actual Billable Hours, Actual Unbillable Hours, and Actual Hour Totals). It can be used to get a pretty good sense for where each project is at.

- The task listing includes estimated and actual hours and the listing can be filtered for individual projects, modules, resources, etc.. We use this functionality quite a bit in conjunction with milestones since we use milestones for deliverables. I can filter for the individual milestone and see the estimated and actual hours for each team member to see how loaded up they are.

None of those include the exact functionality but I thought I would mention it just in case it adds value.

Intervals data can be exported via the data export under Options -> Settings & Defaults -> Data Export tab. The data can be exported to XML from here. Another option is to export the data to XML using the API.

Michael,

is it the philosophy of Intervals such that there is no way of creating dependent tasks - a task that can be created without a physical start date but rather begins at the conclusion of another task?

The closest functionality to #1 is copying a project but that will copy all tasks, modules, milestones, etc. so it is a little bit different. Regarding #2 if you click on "show widescreen view" on the top of the task listing additional columns of information appear including client, module, milestone, and start date. If you click on module the tasks will group by module. Also, the home page can be used in a very similar fashion if you would like to see tasks by module in a calendar view.