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Gantt Chart with Cost from Microsoft Project

How to create a Gantt chart from Microsoft Project that tracks costs across resources and departments over the life of the project.

Traditional Gantt charts only track the start and finish dates of key tasks and milestones. OnePager can also import cost information from Microsoft Project and display those costs in alignment with the project schedule.

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  1. We'll start with a project plan. This example uses Microsoft Project, but you can just as easily use Planisware, Primavera P6, or Smartsheet. In this project plan, each task has a cost, which is assigned to an individual. Each individual, in turn, is assigned to a team:

    Microsoft Project plan with costs

    With OnePager, we can track the total project cost over time, or we can slice and dice it by resource, team, or both.

  2. You can decide which tasks and milestones to include in your OnePager Gantt chart by flagging them, like this:

    Flag activities from Microsoft Project.

  3. Create your initial Gantt chart by going to the Add-Ins tab of Microsoft Project, and clicking the OnePager button:

    Launch OnePager as an add-in to Microsoft Project.

  4. When the start screen appears, click NEW to build a new Gantt chart, which will initially look something like this. In the next few steps, we'll bring in the cost information, and graph it across the top of the Gantt chart.

    Gantt chart created from Microsoft Project.

  5. To add a cost graph to the Gantt chart, go to Home > Chart Properties > Graphs/Data Cells. We'll initially set up a quarterly cumulative line graph that looks at the Cost field from Microsoft Project:

    Settings to create a quarterly cost graph for your Microsoft Project Gantt chart in OnePager.

  6. Click OK, and OnePager will graph a quarterly summary of aggregate costs over the life of the project:

    OnePager Gantt Chart from Microsoft Project, displaying cumulative quarterly cost for a project.

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Graphing Project Cost by Resource

While the line graph in the first part of this example provided a good understanding of the total project cost over time, many leaders need to understand how much cost each person's time is contributing to their project. In this section, we'll show you how to slice and dice your project cost based on resource assignments.

  1. Return to Home > Chart Properties > Graphs/Data Cells. Begin by changing the Graph Type to a Column and unchecking the Cumulative box, if it's still checked. Then, click the Pivot Series button, which will let you slice and dice your quarterly project costs based on each assigned resource:

    Switch from a line graph to a column graph for project cost.

  2. Make sure that you are on the Vertical Pivot tab, check the box to Pivot vertically with field, and then select the Resource Names field from the dropdown. From here, you can either set up your own conditional formatting rules, or you can simply click OK and let OnePager take care of the color-coding for you.

    Slice and dice your project resource graph based on resource assignments.

  3. OnePager will update the column graph at the top of your Gantt chart so that the quarterly cost is broken out for each person working on the project during that time period. For example, all of the cost associated with Anastasia's work, shown in red, takes place in Q2 through Q4 of 2026. Meanwhile, Ronan, in black, adds to the cost of the project in Q3 2026 and Q1 2027.

    Project Gantt chart with a column graph on top. The stacked bar graph shows the quarterly cost over the duration of the project, with each quarter's cost broken out by the resources that were working on the project in the given quarter.

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Graphing Project Cost by Team

The graph above does a good job of allocating the cost of the project across different employees, but what if we also want to see that cost broken out by team? OnePager can add a second grouping to the graph to add this information.

  1. Back under Home > Chart Properties > Graphs/Data Cells, click the Pivot Series button again.

    Add a second slice and dice to your cost on the Gantt chart.

  2. Click on the Horizontal Pivot tab, check the box to Pivot horizontally with field, and then select the Resource Group field from the dropdown. Click OK when you're finished.

    Create a horizontally splayed set of column graphs based on the quarterly cost for each team.

  3. While this graph looks similar to the previous version, notice that quarterly cost is now broken out into a set of columns that are splayed horizontally--one for each team. The costs for each individual team member are still stacked vertically. For example, if we look at Q2 of 2026, the is cost for the Product team, the Engineering team, and the QA team. The Engineering team's cost is divided equally between Anastasia in red and Ali in blue.

    Project Gantt chart that tracks cost with a stacked bar graph for each team contributing to the project.

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Steps demonstrated in this article require use of OnePager's optional graphs and data cells feature, which is purchased separately from a standard license. All trial licenses receive complimentary access to graphs and data cells for fifteen days.