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Making an MS Project Pivot Table and Gantt Chart with OnePager Pro

How to create a visual pivot table based on your Microsoft Project plan

If you use Microsoft Project to manage your project schedules and resources, you may sometimes want to slice and dice your project plan by phase, resource, or another MS Project column. If you were using Excel, you could use a pivot table, but there is no pivot table capability in Microsoft Project by itself, which means it can be very difficult to get the views that you need.

Re-pivoted Gantt chart with colors set to risk level instead of resources.

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OnePager Pro is presentation software for Microsoft Project that allows you to create visual pivot charts, based on the data that you already have in MS Project. OnePager combines the analytical capabilities of a pivot table with the graphics of a Gantt chart to give you a pivot chart that is easy to customize and easy to understand.

You can download a free trial of OnePager Pro and follow these step-by-step instructions to create your project pivot chart:

  1. We'll start with a typical Microsoft Project file. OnePager Pro allows you to import a subset of your project plan (using the "Flag 20" filter below) to create a custom pivot chart:
    Microsoft Project plan with resources, phases, and risk levels.
  2. Next, we’ll create our initial pivot chart by double-clicking the OnePager Pro icon on our desktop. From the Start screen that appears, choose New. We'll choose our Microsoft Project plan as the source file for our pivot chart. OnePager Pro will then launch an easy import wizard that will help you configure your report:
    Import your data from Microsoft Project into OnePager Pro to create a pivot chart.
  3. Now, click the Create new chart button to import your data from Microsoft Project and create your report. It will have a pivot table on the left and a Gantt chart on the right:
    Gantt chart with pivot table created in OnePager Pro using data from Microsoft Project. By default, the OnePager Pro chart will initially pivot based on the "Level 1 Summary Name", which is the top-level outline of your Microsoft Project plan. The chart is also color-coded automatically by the resource assignments in Microsoft Project. This is all customizable, just like a pivot table in Microsoft Excel.
  4. If you want to customize the grouping, sorting, and color-coding of your pivot chart, you can do so based on any column in Microsoft Project. Click the Chart Properties button on the Home tab of the ribbon and navigate to the Rows & Swimlanes tab.
    OnePager lets you change the pivot table in your Gantt chart.
  5. We'll change the swimlane groupings to re-pivot based on "Resource Names" instead of "Level 1 Summary Name". After clicking OK, the pivot chart will be updated to reflect the new layout:
    Re-pivoted Gantt chart with pivot table set to resources instead of phases.
  6. Next, let's pivot the colors. Go back to Chart Properties and navigate to the Task Bars tab.
    OnePager also lets you pivot color assignments based on a Microsoft Project data column.
  7. We'll change the automatic color-coding to re-pivot based on "Text 30", a column we're using to track risk level, instead of "Resource Names". After clicking OK, the pivot chart will be updated to reflect the new color scheme:
    Re-pivoted Gantt chart with colors set to risk level instead of resources.

Once you have finished pivoting your chart, you can copy and paste it into a PowerPoint presentation, or save it as an image file to be posted to a SharePoint site.

OnePager Pro is the easiest way to turn your Microsoft Project plan into a dynamic report containing both a pivot table and a Gantt chart. The best part is that it's all based on the data that you already have.

Get started today by downloading a free trial.

15-Day
Free Trial