This is really amazing! A lot of great features packed into the very first beta launch. The ability to interact with the Gantt view makes this much more than just the display of a chart.
The seamless way that the summary rows work with indenting to calculate the start and end dates and overall % Complete takes a lot of the complexity out of a spreadsheet that does this with formulas … and of course the dependency arrows are another feature you can’t get without programming or add-ins in Excel or Sheets.
My first observation when testing was some difficulty in getting the Gantt View to use existing columns, but Murali has addressed this in the following post:
https://community.spreadsheet.com/t/gantt-view-project-management/376
Currently, the color of the bars is controlled via the “Status column” assignment, but it looks like the only thing this does is change the color. So, I’d recommend changing the label to “Color column” because color might be used for things other than “Status” such as different phases of a project, different types such as summary vs. milestone vs. other, or to color code based on the person assigned (these are all common uses for colors, in addition to status). This isn’t a critical change - just something that makes the project management feature a bit more generalized.
Does the critical path option use an algorithm that also calculates float time? If so, it would be useful to see the float time represented when turning on the critical path.
Some things when working with predecessors:
- When you add a new task and the first thing you do is define the predecessor, it would be great if it automatically filled in the start date (as the next work day), end date, and 1d duration.
- I couldn’t figure out a way to delete a dependency within the Gantt View. It would be nice to be able to select the dependency line and press Delete.
- When you shorten the duration of a predecessor, the successor keeps the original start date. I’ve always linked successors so that when a predecessor end date changes, the successor’s start date moves with that end date (similar to what happens when you increase the duration of a predecessor). In other words, unless using a formula to define it differently, the successor always starts immediately after the predecessor (i.e. next work day).
- There is actually a lot of possible logic associated with defining dependencies (having the successor start the next work day after the predecessor being the most common). In a spreadsheet, more advanced dependencies could be defined using formulas for the dates and durations, but the current Gantt View does not allow the linked columns to use formulas. I can understand why - primarily because of the interaction within the Gantt View itself. One idea for allowing more complex dependencies would be to have a Gantt View option that turns off the interaction feature so that the Gantt View is display-only, allowing the linked columns to contain formulas.
With the various view options (Days, Months, Years, etc.) I’d prefer that the prior years, prior months, prior weeks, etc. not be shown in the Gantt View, because it’s a bit frustrating finding the start of the project sometimes when changing the scale and scrolling. It would be great if you could scroll all the way to the left and always trust that you’ll see the earliest event in the Gantt chart.
One of the things that people are going to request is the ability to show Planned vs. Actual schedules, so that might be another thing to add to the future gantt view road map (two additional columns for Planned Start Date and Planned End Date so you can see when a schedule is behind or ahead of schedule).
June 3 is a huge milestone achievement for SSDC !! Congratulations. The Gantt View is awesome.