Project Management Tutorial

Access Project Settings for a sheet

Right-click any column header while in the Grid and Gantt views of your sheet and select Edit Project Settings.
 

 

You only see the Timeline Display settings after switching your sheet to Gantt View.

Edit dependency settings and working days

Date range display  

Start Date and End Date columns: When using multiple date columns, you can select which columns to use for tracking the Start Date and End Date. You need date columns to add a Gantt chart to a sheet or to use the dependency functionality.

Options  

% Complete Column: To overlay a % Complete indicator within the task bars in the Gantt chart and see automated % Complete calculations occur in the parent rows, select the % Complete column.

The automatic % Complete calculations in parent rows are based on your manually added % Complete and Duration of child rows.

Dependencies

Enabled: Checking the box for Dependencies Enabled adds automated dependency functionality to the sheet. You can use the Predecessor and Duration columns to exclude non-working days from your schedule and to change the length (in hours) of working days.

It also creates an automated summary in the parent rows of the Duration, Start Date, End Date, and % Complete columns.

Predecessor column: Select the column to use as the Predecessor column. Use the selected column to create dependencies between tasks in the schedule.

Duration column: Use the Duration column and Working Days feature to automate the scheduling of a task's start and end dates.

Working days 

Working days and non-working days: After enabling dependencies, click Edit to select which days are non-working days for the purpose of the project. 

Length of day (hours): Set the length, in hours, of working days in the project sheet. By default, Smartsheet considers each working day to include 8 hours. The system considers the length of each working day when calculating dates of tasks. 

Customize the Gantt chart display and behavior

In the Timeline Display section of the Project Settings, you can change the Gantt timeline intervals and display formatting, start of the fiscal year, and what column information appears to the right of the Gantt bars in the chart. For example, set a Contact List column as the display label to see a list of the people assigned to tasks next to each Gantt bar.

Open to today's date

• Use Open to today's date to view current tasks in your project more quickly when you open the sheet.
• The Open to today's date setting is only available to the sheet's Owner and Admins. It is unchecked by default, and it does not transfer to any copies of the sheet.
• Additionally, the view is only applied as your preference and does not affect how other collaborators view the sheet.
• If somebody with Editor or Viewer permissions needs to open the Gantt chart to today's date, you can create a report from your sheet in Gantt view and share them to the report.

A milestones is represented by a grey diamond image in the Gantt chart, centered on the provided start time.

To create a milestone:

1. To change your view or to add a Gantt chart to your sheet, click Grid View > Gantt View.
   
   

2. Enable dependencies on your sheet (click Edit Project Settings in the top right corner of the Gantt chart and check the Dependencies Enabled checkbox). 

3. To create the milestone, enter a task duration of zero and a start date.

To create an extended milestone, enter a task duration of ~0 and a start date. An extended milestone requires one full working day to complete, but you can still see its diamond shape in the Gantt chart.

Parent rollup functionality is not compatible with milestones. You cannot % Complete rollups in tasks containing sub-tasks with milestones with a duration of zero (0). 

Start Date, End Date, Duration, and % Complete for parent rows

The Start Date for a parent is the earliest start date from all of its child rows. Similarly, the End Date is the last end date from all its child rows.

The Duration on the parent reflects the number of working days between the Start Date and End Date in that row. It provides a full time span, from the earliest subtask to the latest, as opposed to a sum of their durations.

The % Complete on the parent row calculates a weighted percentage based on both the Duration and % Complete entered on each child row. In this way, completing child rows with shorter durations does not affect the parent row % Complete as much as completing a longer duration child row.

The parent row rollup includes only subtasks with a given Duration and a % Complete value.

Parent rollup functionality tips

• You cannot edit parent rows with enabled dependencies in the Start Date, End Date, Duration, and % Complete columns. To use your own calculations, you can disable the Dependency functionality on the sheet or create your desired formula in a columns not used in the dependency functionality.

• You cannot use custom formulas to change the display or bars in the Gantt chart.

• Parent rows in dependency-enabled sheets always have a grey background color in the Gantt and Calendar views.

• Parent rows always reflect duration in partial working days, even if you use other formats to show duration for the child rows.

• Parent rows do not calculate % Complete rollups when any of their child rows contains milestones (duration = 0).