How to make a schedule using Microsoft Excel tools? Step by step guide

Make a schedule with the tools of Excel It can be without a doubt one of the easiest ways. The reason is that This program has different tools that will help you to represent the activities of your project in different ways. In addition, you can incorporate visual elements to highlight different sections.

The templates built into Excel are very useful, since they act in the same way as the Gantt diagram, but providing broad progress. They can be customized to your liking, which will help you maintain good coordination and function of all with a unique design.

Taking into account all the above, we will explain below how to make a schedule using Microsoft Excel tools. You can do it through templates available, or manually. Read on for the step-by-step!

Steps to schedule activities in Microsoft Excel like an expert

A activity schedule is very effective to organize your daily tasks in order of importance, type of tasks and much more. In this way, you avoid overlooking commitments or jobs that you must fulfill.

Therefore, we will give you the step by step of how to create yours in a personalized way as an expert:

With a template

The essential thing before moving forward is keep in mind and already defined a draft well detailed schedule to be carried out, where each activity or task to be performed is presented taking consider each one with its tentative dates.

Having that in hand we get to it:

The first thing we will do is open excel program and go where the bar appears "Search for" at the top right.
Clicking there we will place the name of the template to search for. In this case we will use the template "Gantt Project Planner".
Select the template to be displayed with that name to start working on it.
To start adding tasks go to the column of Name of the homework or Exercise. There, he begins to write the things to do.
Under the Project Planner title, there is an option called Highlighted period, in which you are going to introduce the full span of your project. For example, if it will take 6 months, select number 6.
Then you can customize the diagram according to your needs. For example, in the column Start of the plan write the periods in which the tasks are established.
Do the same in the other rows as Plan Duration, Actual Start, and Actual Duration. It is recommended that the column times Actual start match plan start. Also, the Duration of the plan should be the same as the actual Duration.
In case you want to delete a row, right click on the cell and press the option Remove. Then select in The whole row.
If you want it to be shown only as a graph, select the numeric data columns (in the case of the template it is from row C to G). Right click and tap Hide.

Manually

With the help of Gantt diagram, you can graphically represent all the planning of activities you have in relation to a project or pending tasks. It should note that it is applicable to any sector, so it fits perfectly to your needs.

Next, we will explain the step by step on how to make a schedule of activities in Excel manually:

First, previously make a table in which you specify the name of the activities to be carried out, their start date, duration and end date.
Locate yourself anywhere table outside the previously made table. Go to the tab Insert in Excel, specifically within the group Graphics. Tap the button Columns and then select 2D Bar / Stacked Bar.
A blank box will be displayed because the data where the chart will later be located has not yet been selected. Within the chart tools, click on the option Select data.
You will appreciate the window Select the data source. With it, you can begin to include the data you want to appear within the graph. First go to the button Add displayed above the left pane of the (Series) window. You also get it by touching the symbol of +.
Automatically, the first series appears with the name of "Series1". On the right side, enter the Series values or also identified as Y values. There, tap on the icon next to that option and select the start dates of your project. When you're done, click To accept.
Then press again Select data to redisplay the Select Data Source window. Click again on the symbol + or in Add to create series 2.
It is time to add a new series, for another aspect such as the duration in days of your project. Go to Series values or to Y values and apply the same procedure to add a new series to your chart. That is, touch the data column and press To accept.
To series 2, the horizontal axis labels will be modified. To do this, go to Select data and when the popup is displayed, go to Series2. Then in Horizontal axis labels click the icon at the end of that line and choose the names of the activities. Tap on To accept.
Now you have to give it a Gantt chart look. To achieve this, you have to right-click on any of the blue bars of the graph and select in Format data series.
In the right bar that will open, you have to go to Fill and Line (has a paint bucket icon). Tap on Unfilled.
Where the names of the activities appear, right click and go back to Format axis. In the options, enter the axis options and at the bottom tap on Categories in reverse order.
Now you must set the beginning and end of the bars of the graph. To do this, copy the starting date of the first activity in a different cell and place the last date at the end of the project. Select both cells and change its format to number by going to Start, in the number options press Number and ready.
Then go to the graph, locate yourself on the horizontal axis right click and go to Format axis. There, write in the limit options the start and end date of your project. At minimum you put the start date, and at maximum you write the end.

By last, you can modify different options such as the name of the graphic, the colors, the appearance and much more.

List of the best timeline templates you can use in Excel

The templates they are perfect to make life easier for all those users who are not entirely experts in the Excel management. Also, most of them can be customized to give you the colors, shapes and type of text you want.