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There is no convenient way to use Excel to draw a Gantt chart as one would need when managing a project. The only way to do so is to plot the correct number of series as bar charts and after that one must format the various points so as to achieve the effect of having 'floating' bars within an Excel chart. This add-in automates the job and updates the associated chart as the underlying data change.
The following simplified example demonstrates a Gantt chart as one might it in a project. Consider four people working on a project with busy times as shown below. John is busy in the period ending Jan 1, idle during the period ending Feb 1, busy from Mar 1 to May 1, etc.
The software provides tremendous flexibility since it leaves the interpretation of the data in the table to the user. For instance, in the table above the names of the people could just as easily correspond to tasks.
In addition, the interpretation of the dates at the top is also up to the user of the software. Each column represents a period that either starts with or ends with the specified date. Finally, the dates can be dates as in this example, or just a number indicating the number of days, weeks, months, or years since project commencement.
The Gantt chart corresponding the the information in Figure 1 would be:
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