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I am attempting to create a daily graphical timeline from start times and duration. I have three columns: Program Name, Start Time and Duration. The data looks something like this...

enter image description here

The desired output would look something like this...

enter image description here

I found some helpful directions (here and here) but they don't seem to be working. I tried creating a stacked bar chart with the Legend Entries being Start Time and Duration and the Axis Labels as the program names, but my chart turns out like this.

enter image description here

It seems that most of these directions are based off of a start date, not a start time, which I'm wondering is the issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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  • This is called a Gantt Chart. Might help to put that in the title or question. Once upon a time I had one of these setup, and unless there have been major changes it won't be possible through a chart. I remember it taking lots of complicated formulas. But good luck! Jul 24, 2014 at 13:11
  • @KingOfAllTrades Thanks, I added GANTT Chart to the title hoping that it might attract the right crowd. It seems like something that shouldn't be so difficult to do with the almighty power of Excel... :-(
    – FancyPanda
    Jul 24, 2014 at 13:26

1 Answer 1

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I'm not sure what happened on your example, but this is a pretty straightforward Excel charting task. Here's another look at the process:

  1. Enter your data (the format from your sample is fine, it doesn't have to be dates).
  2. Create a new Stacked Bar Chart.
  3. Add Start Time as your first data series (first chart below) and Program Name as your Horizontal X Axis Labels.
  4. Add Duration as your second data series (second chart below).
  5. Reformat your first data series Start Time to No Fill to hide. (third chart below)
  6. Reformat your Horizontal Axis to suit (fourth chart below). I used the following values:
    • Min: 0
    • Max: 1 (1 day or 24 hours)
    • Major: 0.25 (6 hours)
    • Minor: 0.04166 (1 hour)

gantt steps

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  • So the only thing that I changed was the format of the start date (it was text and I changed it to time) then followed your directions and it worked fine! thanks!
    – FancyPanda
    Jul 24, 2014 at 20:13

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