Gantt Chart Elements

The following section will walk you through the elements of your Gantt chart panel and explain how to accomplish many common tasks.

Toolbar

Using the toolbar, you can:

• Access Gantt Chart Settings
• Adjust the chart's appearance
  
• Select which elements are shown within your timeline
• Create dependencies
• Turn tasks into milestones

Timeline

Your timeline contains visual representations of tasks, dependencies, progress, milestones and other key dates.

It is also where you will do most of your work. As you saw in Working with Tasks, you can adjust tasks and dependencies directly from your timeline.

Time Scale

You can quickly navigate or focus your timeline in a variety of ways:

• Zoom in or out to see more or less of your timeline
• Scroll horizontally or vertically
• Hold the Shift key and drag the chart with your pointer
• Focus in on the current date with the Today button
• Navigate to the current task with the Focused Task button (next to the Today button)

Zoom Level

To adjust the zoom level of your chart, use the + or - magnification buttons in the toolbar. You can also zoom in or out using your mouse wheel, by holding down the ctrl button (cmd on macs). 

To view issues based on a specific time scale, such as weekly or monthly, use the drop-down menu beside the magnification buttons.

Start Day and Current Date

The project start date is indicated by a green vertical dashed line. The current date/time is indicated by an orange vertical line.

Mousing over the point at the top of either line will display the exact date.

Fix Versions

Fix Version markers display version names. By hovering over a marker, you can also see the release date and project key (if versions are shown for multiple projects).

Sprints

If the highlighted task is manually scheduled by sprints, sprints from the corresponding board will be displayed at the top of the timeline when the task is selected.

Sprints can be visualized based on sprints already defined in a Jira board, or you can display anticipated sprints by specifying the day of the week sprints start and sprint duration. (See Gantt Chart Settings for instructions on specifying sprint timelines.)

Task Bars

Structure items are represented in the chart as task bars.

• A task's position on the timeline is based on its dependencies, manually-set Start or/and Finish dates or sprint dates.
• If you have configured Gantt to track the progress of tasks, that will be shown inside the bar. To show/hide progress, use the Options menu in the Gantt toolbar.
• Completed tasks can be marked with a check icon. To show or hide Task Indicators, use the Options menu in the Gantt toolbar.
• If a task is a part of the critical path, it is shown red. The rest of the tasks are blue. You can show or hide critical path highlighting using the Options menu in the Gantt toolbar.

Groups

If an element has children in a structure, it can be shown as a Group.

• A group's Start Date and Duration are calculated automatically, based on the Start Date and Duration of the elements it contains.
• If the group is an issue, which has its own Start Date and Duration values, they are ignored.
• Progress for the group is calculated as an aggregation of its children's progress, and the element's own task progress is ignored as well.

Dependencies

Dependencies are displayed as arrows between task bars.

• Click the arrow to show the Dependency Properties
• To show/hide dependency arrows, use the Options menu in the toolbar

For more information about managing dependencies, see Dependencies.

Critical Path

If a task is part of the critical path, it will have a red task bar. A task is considered part of the critical path if delaying that task would extend the project's end date.

To switch off Critical Path highlighting:

1. Select the Options menu in the toolbar
2. Uncheck Critical Path

Display Options

The Options menu in the Gantt toolbar allows you to select what elements should be shown in the chart.

These include:

• Summary
• Issue Key
• Resources
• Critical Path
• Progress
• Dependencies
• Chart Warnings (such as another time zone or different calendar)
• Task Indicators (see Task Indicators)
• Sprints (Note: If this option is switched off, sprints will still be displayed when dragging sprint-scheduled tasks.)
  

Status Bar

If there are any inconsistencies in the source data (for example, a cycle of dependencies), the Gantt Info link will be shown on the right side of the Structure status bar (next to the Structure Info link  at the bottom of the screen). Click the link to see details of the inconsistencies.

If you do not have permission to edit the Gantt chart, that information will be displayed in the Status Bar as well.