Excel can be useful for helping create schedules where Project is too much or is not available. It is also useful as an adjunct to Project to display data. This page is intended to show typical examples of using excel as a scheduling and reporting tool.
Please let me know if there is something you would like to see here.
-Jack Dahlgren
Some people want to see a bar graph of their schedule in excel. Here is a sample spreadsheet which shows how to use some simple formulas and the conditional formatting function to produce such a chart. It also demonstrates using formulas to link tasks or to set dates for tasks using entered durations. You need Excel installed on your computer to open this spreadsheet.
ExcelCalendar.xls
A tip for people exporting data to excel.
Use Edit/Replace to eliminate the "h" or "d" that project adds to duration and work. Simply select the column with the offending character, go to edit menu / replace and enter the value to search for in the top box. Leave the bottom box empty and click OK. All the unwanted text will be removed
Importing from Excel to Project and Indenting Tasks
Project will import all of the tasks in your excel spreadsheet at the same outline level. That is that they will all be tasks and there will be no subtasks or summary tasks. However, by adding a column to your list of tasks in excel you can have project automatically place them in the correct heirarchy.
Simply insert a column, name it Outline_level or something similar and then when creating a map for import, make sure it maps to Outline Level in Project.
When you have done this you can just put the level of outline you want in front of each task and when it imports it will be indented that number of levels
Items to add later: (ignore this, these are things I want to do soon.
Automatic chart formatting
Analyze timescaled data
Pivot tables
MS Query