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Compare Project Scenarios

When you are planning major changes to a project, it's a good idea to compare different scenarios before finalizing any decisions. OnePager helps you visualize different project scenarios in an easy-to-read timeline.

Compare different project scenarios.

OnePager works with Microsoft Project, Project Server, or Microsoft Planner to help you compare different scenarios in your project plan. Here's how:

  1. Open your original Microsoft Project plan (we'll call it "Scenario One") and select the tasks and milestones that you want to include in the scenario comparison:

    First project scenario.

  2. Next, make a few changes to the original project plan and save it as "Scenario Two":

    Second project scenario.

    In the second scenario, we've changed some of the tasks to have a longer duration than originally planned.

  3. Now, we'll import both project scenarios into OnePager to compare them side-by-side. To do this, go to Microsoft Project's Add-ins tab, and click the OnePager button:

    OnePager can compare two project scenarios side-by-side.

  4. Click NEW to build a new scenario comparison. When the import wizard appears, tell OnePager that you want to import both Scenario One and Scenario Two into the same report:

    Import two different project scenarios into the same Gantt chart.

  5. Click Create New Chart to import both project scenarios into the side-by-side report. You can configure your swimlanes and task layouts to generate a comparison like this:

    Project Scenario Comparison Report.

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Customize your Project Scenario Comparison

The chart that OnePager created above gave us a pretty good comparison between the two scenarios, but there are several customizations you can do to create an even more informative report:

  1. To make it easier to see how the milestones in each scenario compare to each other, we can assign a unique color to the same milestone in scenario one and two. To do this, we'll first set the entire chart to one color by going to Home > Chart Properties > Task Bars > Use One Color: Set your Gantt chart to one color.
  2. Under Conditional Formatting, click Manage Rules to assign each pair of related milestones the same color in both scenarios: Color-code different milestones in your project scenario comparison.

    In this example, we color-code the same milestone in each scenario the same color to make the scenarios easier to compare. For example, "Milestone D" is colored red in both the first and second project scenarios.

  3. Apply the color rules, and we'll get a side-by-side project scenario comparison like this: Compare two project scenarios.
  4. You can also go to Insert > Task Link to place a connector line between the same milestones in each different scenario: Draw a line to connect the related milestones.

    These are not true project dependencies; instead they help show how the same milestone shifts between the first and second scenario.

Build a OnePager project scenario comparison today by downloading a free trial.

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First published: January 29, 2018
Last updated: September 11, 2026

Some sequences pertaining to unrelated features have been shortened for brevity. OnePager Pro supports Microsoft Project or Project Server. OnePager Bundle supports Microsoft Project, Project Server, or Microsoft Planner.