The Gantt tab shows your tasks as a Gantt chart — a horizontal-bar view of when work happens, how long it takes, and how it overlaps. Where the Tasks grid is good for reading and editing individual tasks, the Gantt is good for seeing the shape of a project, spotting collisions between teams, dragging dates to reschedule, and linking tasks so everyone can see what has to finish before what.
Navigation: in the left sidebar, click Tasks, then click the Gantt tab at the top of the page.
What you see on this screen
# | Area | What it is |
|---|---|---|
1 | Grouping toggle | Three buttons at the top — By Project, All Tasks, By Team. By Project groups tasks under their parent project (the default; collapsible). All Tasks is a flat list. By Team groups by the team assigned. |
2 | Load More | The Gantt loads tasks in batches for performance. Click Load More to bring in additional rows beyond the initial set. |
3 | Toolbar | Toolbar actions: Zoom in / Zoom out change the time axis from quarters to weeks to days; Zoom to fit snaps so all visible tasks fit on screen; Expand all / Collapse all open or close every project group; Set Baseline freezes the selected project's current schedule for later comparison (see Baselines below); Excel export and PDF export produce static copies of the current view. |
4 | Row columns | Left side of the chart, before the bars: Name (the project or task name), Team, Depends On, Status, Est Hrs, Start, and End. Drag the column boundary to widen or narrow. |
5 | Depends On column | Lists the tasks that must happen before this one, in the form #104 Demolition & Bed Prep (FS +2 days) — the task number, its name, the link type, and any lag. It is filled in for you when you draw a link on the chart; you cannot type into it directly. See Dependencies below. |
6 | Time axis | The header showing months and days. Zoom in to see day-level granularity; zoom out to see quarters across a full year. The current view's date range determines which task bars are visible. |
7 | Task bars | Each task is a horizontal bar from its start date to its end date. The dark portion is the duration; a thin progress bar may overlay it as the task moves through its workflow. Drag a bar to move it, or drag its edge to lengthen it — the new dates save immediately. Arrows drawn between bars are dependency links. |
Grouping modes
The grouping toggle in the top-left changes how the chart is organized. Pick the view that matches the question you are answering.
Mode | When to use it |
|---|---|
By Project (default) | You want to see the structure of one or more projects at once — parent rows you can collapse to a single bar, with tasks underneath. Best for project review meetings. |
All Tasks | You want a flat list of every task in date order — for example, "show me every task in this window, regardless of project." Best for spotting a team double-booked across multiple jobs. |
By Team | You want to see each team's load. One row per team, with that team's tasks laid out horizontally. Best for balancing work across teams. |
Zooming and navigating
The Gantt uses three zoom levels: quarters (a full year fits on screen, useful for "what does Q3 look like?"), months/weeks (a quarter at a time, the most common working zoom), and days (a week or two at a time, useful for fine adjustments). Click Zoom in or Zoom out to step through. Zoom to fit finds a zoom level that shows every loaded task at once.
Drag the chart horizontally to scroll through time. Drag the column boundary on the left to widen or narrow the Name / Team / Status columns.
Moving dates on the chart
The Gantt is not a read-only picture. Drag a task bar sideways to move the task, or drag either end to make it longer or shorter. When you let go, the new Start and End dates save straight away and you get a Task dates updated successfully confirmation. If the save is rejected, the bar snaps back to where it was and the message tells you why.
Two rules apply while you drag:
A task cannot be dragged to start before its project starts. Try it and the drag is cancelled with Task can’t start before project start date.
Dragging the project row moves the project’s own start and target end dates, not the tasks underneath it.
Moving a bar here changes the plan — the task’s start and target end dates. It does not change the day a team is booked to be on site; that is the scheduled date, which you set on the Schedule tab.
Dependencies
A dependency records that one task has to happen before another — you cannot pour a slab before the forms are built. On the Gantt you draw those links directly between the bars, and they are saved to the project immediately, so everyone looking at the schedule sees the same chain of work.
Drawing a link
Hover over a task bar. A small round handle appears at each end of the bar — one at the start, one at the finish. Drag from the handle on the first task onto the bar of the task that follows it, then release. An arrow is drawn between the two bars, the Depends On cell on the second task fills in, and a Dependencies updated successfully confirmation appears.
Which handle you drag from and which you drop onto decides the link type. There are four, and they are the standard project-scheduling set:
Code | Name | What it means |
|---|---|---|
FS | Finish-to-Start | The second task starts after the first one finishes. This is the normal case and the one you get by default. |
SS | Start-to-Start | Both tasks start together. Useful for work that runs side by side. |
FF | Finish-to-Finish | Both tasks have to finish together, whenever they started. |
SF | Start-to-Finish | The second task cannot finish until the first one starts. Rare, but supported. |
A link can also carry lag or lead — a number of days of gap. It shows in the Depends On cell after the link type: FS +2 days means "start two days after the first task finishes" (a cure or dry-out window), and a negative number means the follower may start early. Days of lag are counted in working days, so weekends and your business unit’s holidays do not eat into the gap.
What a link is allowed to be
Both tasks must be in the same project. Draw between two projects and the link is refused with A task dependency must link two tasks in the same project.
A task cannot depend on itself — A task cannot depend on itself.
No circular chains. See below.
You need permission to edit both tasks. Linking constrains both ends, so drawing a link requires tasks update on the predecessor as well as on the task you are linking.
Both tasks have to be loaded. The Gantt loads in batches, so if the other end of a link has not been pulled in yet you will see 1 link could not be saved because the linked task is not loaded. Scroll to load it, then try again. Click Load More (or scroll) until both tasks are on screen, then draw the link again.
Circular chains are blocked
If a link would close a loop — A waits on B, B waits on C, and you then try to make C wait on A — the save is refused and nothing is stored. The message names the chain it would have created, so you can see exactly where the loop closes:
This dependency would create a circular chain: Pour Slab → Strip Forms → Pour Slab.
The chart snaps back to how it looked before the drag. Remove one of the existing links in that chain and the new one will save.
Removing a link
Right-click the task that has the dependency — either its row on the left or its bar on the chart — and choose Remove dependency. If the task depends on only one other task, the link is removed straight away. If it depends on several, a Remove dependency box lists them all and you pick the one to drop. Tasks with no dependencies have no right-click menu at all, which is the quickest way to tell whether a task is linked to anything.
Dependencies do not move dates for you — yet
Today a dependency is a recorded, shared statement of order: it draws the arrow, fills in Depends On, and is visible to everyone on the project. It does not automatically push the follower’s dates when you drag its predecessor. If you move a task that others wait on, move those tasks too. Automatic rescheduling from dependencies is in progress and this article will be updated when it is switched on.
Baselines
A baseline is a saved snapshot of a project's schedule at a moment in time — usually the plan everyone agreed to. Select a project row and click Set Baseline in the toolbar to freeze that project's current dates as the baseline. From then on, the chart draws a second, thinner bar under each task showing the baseline dates, so you can compare the plan against where the work actually sits today and see exactly which tasks have slipped.
Opening a task from the Gantt
Click any task bar or row to open the Task Detail dialog for that task. This is the same Task Detail dialog you get from right-clicking in the Tasks grid; see the Tasks article for what is on each tab. Closing the dialog returns you to the Gantt with the same zoom and scroll position.
Exporting
The toolbar offers two export formats:
Excel export produces a spreadsheet with one row per task and columns for the visible fields. Useful for sharing with stakeholders who do not have an include GO login.
PDF export produces a static, printable copy of the current chart at the current zoom level. Useful for site meetings and printed schedules.
Both exports respect the current grouping mode and zoom level — if you want a quarterly summary, zoom out before exporting; if you want day-level detail, zoom in first.
Permissions
The Gantt tab uses the same permissions as the Tasks grid — anyone with tasks view can see it; anyone with tasks manage can open and edit tasks from it. There is no separate Gantt permission. Drawing or removing a dependency additionally requires tasks update on both tasks in the link, since a dependency constrains both ends.
Tips
Start By Project. If you are unsure which grouping to use, By Project is almost always the right starting point — it matches how the rest of the system thinks about work.
Use Collapse All before Expand All. On a busy business unit the Gantt can load hundreds of tasks. Collapse to project rows first, then expand only the project you care about.
Gantt for the plan, Schedule for the day. Use the Gantt to set the shape of the work — how long each task runs and what waits on what. Use the Schedule tab to book which team is on site on which day. Both are editable; they just answer different questions.
Link the obvious chains first. You do not have to map every dependency. Linking the handful that genuinely gate the job — inspections, cure times, deliveries — is where the arrows earn their keep in a project review.
Zoom in before drawing links. The drag handles sit at the ends of the bars, so at quarter zoom, where a two-week task is a few pixels wide, they are hard to hit. Zoom to weeks or days first.
Export to PDF for owner meetings. A printed quarter-zoom Gantt with collapsed project rows is a cleaner client deliverable than a screenshot.