Gantt view equips project managers with the tools to visualize and manage project plans effectively, offering insight into task durations, delivery dates, dependencies, and baseline of your project plan. Gantt view is particularly valuable for large, structured, complex projects that require meticulous planning and comparison of original plans against real-time progress.
Adding and removing Gantt view
Gantt view is available for both new and existing projects. You can add/remove Gantt view as follows:
- Click on the + icon in the project tabs menu as shown in the gif.
- Choose Gantt from the drop-down menu. Gantt view will now be added as a new tab.
- To remove Gantt view, click on the three dot icon beside the Gantt tab to open Tab actions.
- Select Remove from the drop-down menu and then click on Remove tab in the pop up window.
Removing Gantt view from your project will not delete any tasks, this will simply remove the view. The view can be added again at any time.
Key benefits of Gantt view
Strategic planning: Gantt view allows you to plan and estimate essential delivery dates by leveraging task auto-scheduling and duration calculation.
End-to-end management: With a clear depiction of work schedules, including subtasks and dependencies, project managers can effectively oversee projects from start to finish, ensuring seamless coordination.
Progress monitoring: One of the standout features of Gantt view is its ability to monitor project deviations over time. By comparing current progress against an established baseline, project managers gain insights into how well a project adheres to its original plan.
Enhancements and new features: In the world of project management, the complexity of tasks can escalate with the size of the project. Gantt view addresses this challenge by providing an intuitive interface to schedule and manage projects. This view condenses tasks, durations, key dates, and dependencies into a single, accessible location. This is particularly advantageous for larger projects, allowing project managers to gain a holistic perspective and make informed decisions.
Structured and process-oriented approach: Gantt view is not only a tool for visualizing projects; it also facilitates structured and process-oriented project management right from the outset. This is especially beneficial for projects that require well-defined workflows and adherence to procedures.
Gantt vs Timeline view
When do I use Timeline view vs Gantt view?
Both Gantt and Timeline view serve as excellent tools for effectively managing projects in relation to important dates, while also providing stakeholders with a visual representation that promotes alignment and clarity regarding the project's progress. The table below shows more specific examples of when you might choose Gantt view over Timeline.
| Gantt | Timeline |
| To plan and manage projects that are more structured and process-oriented from the start | For iterative projects where you need to see how different pieces of work fit together but expect to continue planning on the go |
| When it’s critical to compare actual progress against original plans and manage task durations to keep projects on track | When it’s important to see swimlanes and sort/filtered views |
| Where there are complex dependencies or a strict schedule/deadline to meet | When there are some dependencies, but changes can be accommodated |
Using Gantt view
- To view a project in Gantt view, you will firstly need to add the view to your project. You can do so by following the steps and gif at the beginning of this article. Once the view has been added, open your project in Asana and navigate to the Gantt tab.
- A list style view is shown on the left, divided into sections identical to your project’s List view.
- You can filter your Gantt view to show All tasks, Completed tasks or Incomplete tasks.
- You can choose to sort your view by Days, Weeks, Months, Quarters, Half-years and Years.
More information on the Color, Auto-scheduling and Baseline features can be found below .
You can create chain dependencies in bulk with Gantt view. To do so, multi-select the relevant tasks and select the Chain dependencies option from the pop-up bar that appears at the bottom of the screen.
Changing the bar colors in Gantt view
You can map the colors of the bar to a custom field via the Color setting in the upper right hand corner. This will apply to all tasks in the project.
Advantages and examples of color mapping to a custom field include:
- If your custom field represents various teams (marketing, product, design and engineering, for example), coloring the bars accordingly allows you to view which team is working on what, at a glance.
- If your custom field represents the status of a task, color mapping to that custom field would give extra visual information on the overall status of your project.
Adding a baseline
Baseline captures a snapshot of the project (including tasks, dates, durations, etc.) at a point in time - it can be used for a visual comparison of the captured vs. current project plans to show how the project has deviated over time.
- To add a baseline, open a project in Gantt view.
- Click on Gant options in the upper right hand corner above the Gantt chart.
- Add a date to the Compare baseline section. This date is the day on which you’d like to view the previous state of the project.
- Adding a date will automatically switch on the Show baseline toggle. You can click on the toggle to switch this off again.
The rectangles with the diagonal hash pattern show the original plan, which you can compare against the current project shown via solid rectangles.
Each project can only have 1 baseline - creating additional snapshots override the current snapshot.
Auto-schedule tasks
To help you quickly create your project structure, Asana will automatically assign dates to new tasks in Gantt view. As you create tasks, they’ll have consecutive date ranges as well as a duration of 1 day by default. If you zoom out to a half-year or year view, the date ranges will be populated as a duration of 5 days by default.
Auto-scheduling is enabled by default. If you wish to disable auto-scheduling, follow the steps below:
- To disable auto-scheduling, open a project in Gantt view.
- Click on Gant options in the upper right hand corner above the Gantt chart.
- Click to toggle off Auto-schedule tasks.
Additional notes:
- By default, tasks will be auto-scheduled and sorted by start date.
- If auto-scheduling is on, your first task created will have a start date of the project start date. If there is no project start date, the first task’s start date will be set to today.
- Each subsequent task will be given a due date that is one day afterwards.
- Auto-schedule mode is supported when sorting by both Start date and None, but has slightly different behavior in each. Users may also manually schedule tasks.
- If auto-scheduling is disabled and then re-enabled, it will not overwrite the dates you have already added to the project.
Gantt view FAQ
What plan is Gantt view available on?
Gantt will be available to Premium, Business and Enterprise customers.
What are some examples of projects that would be a good fit for Gantt view?
Gantt is great for complex projects that are more structured from the start, with a target completion date. Examples include:
- Strategic planning
- Quarterly/annual business planning
- Resource planning
- Product planning
- Organization change implementation and management
- Tech implementation and rollout
- Digital transformation
- Vendor management
- Quality assurance
- Compliance controls management
Are there plans to replace the timeline view?
No, Gantt will not replace timeline view as both views have their own unique use cases.
If I add a duration but no date, what date does it choose from?
- You can’t have a duration without a date.
- Tasks and milestones can have durations and due dates or just a due date, but cannot have duration alone.
- If there are dates and durations, they will be in sync, but filling out a duration is not essential.
Can I set the duration in weeks, months, or years?
Durations can currently only be set in days.
Can I change the dates of multiple tasks or an entire section?
Tasks can be multi-selected and drag-dropped to change the dates in bulk.
Can I create bulk-chain dependencies?
Yes. You can multi-select tasks and select the Chain dependencies option in the bar that appears at the bottom of the screen.
Can I see subtasks in Gantt view?
Yes, you can see 1 level of subtasks under the parent task.
Who can modify and save Gantt options such as auto-scheduling and baseline?
- Modifying and saving Gantt options fully depends on project access levels. For example; project editors will be able to use Gantt view and make changes with no restrictions.
- Comment-only access is currently not available within Gantt view. Users with comment-only project access will be unable to see Gantt view at this time. This will be updated in the near future.
- If your organization is currently on an Enterprise plan, the project admin may have updated the project permissions to Project Admins only. Restricting customization to project admins only applies to certain functionalities like saving a view as default, custom field management, etc. but in this case project editors would still be able to make changes in Gantt view.