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Gantt Chart Showing Working Hours

Create a Gantt chart that hides or colors nights and weekends so only working hours are shown in the project plan.

When you build a project plan, you typically schedule the tasks to take place during normal working hours. Most Gantt charts and timelines, however, show a 24-hour calendar, which often misleads people into thinking that work is taking place when it really isn't scheduled. OnePager will help you create a Gantt chart that only focuses on working hours to give you the most accurate picture of your schedule.

OnePager works with Microsoft Project or Excel to create Gantt charts that accurately distinguish working and non-working hours. This feature is available in version 6.1, beginning in late 2018:

Options for showing working time on a Gantt chart or timeline.

Download a free OnePager trial and get started with these simple steps:

Create a Basic Gantt Chart

  1. Click on the OnePager button:
    OnePager button.
  2. When the OnePager start screen pops up, click NEW to build a new Gantt chart, and then point OnePager to your project plan. In this case, we're using an Excel spreadsheet, but you could use a Microsoft Project file as well:

    Excel Project Plan
  3. The import wizard will ask you a few questions about how to build your Gantt chart. You can take the defaults the first time around, and just click on Next, followed by Create New Project View:

    Create a Gantt Chart
  4. The initial Gantt chart shows a 24-hour clock and shows weekends, meaning that is showing both working hours and non-working hours. This is NOT what we want:

    Gantt Chart showing 24 hours of time, plus weekends

Use Different Colors for Working Hours and Non-Working Hours

One option is to highlight working and non-working hours differently so that it's clear when work is taking place and when it isn't. To do this:

  1. With your OnePager Gantt chart open, go to Home > Project View Properties > Time Axis > Format. OnePager lets you assign a different color to non-working hours, so we'll pick gray in this case:

    Highlight non-working hours in a different color.
  2. Click OK, and your Gantt chart will now show your working hours as white, with your off-hours as gray:

    Gantt chart with non-working hours in a different color.

Only Show Working Hours

Your other option is to hide all non-working hours (overnights and weekends) so that only working hours show in the Gantt chart. To do this:

  1. Go to Home > Project View Properties > Time Axis > Format. Uncheck the Show Non-Working Hours box:

    Hide non-working hours
  2. We can then change our time axis units to show each working hour, instead of every three hours as we had before. Move from the Format sub-tab to the Bottom Level sub-tab, and change your hourly units so that each hour is shown:

    Show every working hour on the timeline.
  3. You can also stretch the width of your chart a bit now that so many non-working hours have been removed, making the remaining working time more readable. The end result looks like this:

    Gantt chart showing only working hours

OnePager is the most direct way to create a budget report out of a Microsoft Project plan. Because OnePager Pro is a reporting app, it gives you all of the power of MS Project with the visual capabilities of PowerPoint.

Get started today by downloading a free trial or attending one of our demonstration webinars.

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