A Gantt chart is a common chart type used in project management. Gantt plots provide the most useful ways of displaying activities (tasks or events) against time periods. Gantt charts can also be used to schedule big projects by breaking them into tasks and subtasks. The Gantt plot helps lay the tasks and subtasks on a timeline. In the Gantt chart, each task is listed on the chart's one side and each has a horizontal bar opposite it corresponding to the task length. By using the Gantt chart, you can find out how long each task will take and which tasks can overlap.

See Create Gantt Chart walkthrough to learn how the immunization schedule can be laid out using the Gantt chart.

A Gantt chart is made of essential elements, such as:

• Task: An activity involved in the project.    
• Start: The date or time when the task execution begins.
• End: The date or time when the task execution ends.

Gantt Plot Properties

The plot properties discussed below can be accessed from the Properties Panel on selecting the Chart > Plot from the Report Explorer. You can access some of the important properties from the Plot's Smart Panel too. See Chart Smart Panels topic for more information. Both the Properties Panel and the Smart Panel can be accessed by right-clicking the plot in the design area.

Appearance

BackgroundColor

Indicates the color used to fill the chart area.

Common

Action

The action to perform when the plot is clicked. The action can be a hyperlink, a bookmark, or a drill-through. 

Labels

The data labels for each chart.

• BackgroundColor: The background color of the box containing the data label.
• Border: Border of the box containing the data label text. Includes LineColor, LineStyle, and LineWidth properties.
• Color: The color name or hex value indicating the text color of the label.
• ConnectingLine: The line that draws connecting the plot edge with the data label. Customize the appearance of the connecting line using the following properties:
  • LineColor: Specify the color of the connecting line.
  • LinePosition: Specify the position of the connecting line relative to the data label. Customize the position of connecting line with Auto and Center properties.
  • LineStyle: Specify the line style as 'Dashed', 'Dotted', 'Double', etc.
  • LineWidth: Specify the width of the connecting line.
• Font: The font used to render the text of the label. Customize the text font using the Font Family, Font Size, Font Style, and Font Weight properties.
• Offset: It gets or sets the text offset of the data label in pixel.
• OverlappingLabels: Indicates the handling of labels in case they overlap. The property takes the following values:
  • Auto: Hides labels that overlap.
  • Show: Shows the labels even if the labels overlap.
  • Hide: Hides the labels that overlap.
• Template: The template for the data label.
• TextDecoration: Decorate the data label text with an Underline, a DoubleUnderline, an Overline, or a LineThrough.
• TextPosition: The position of the data label text relative to the plot.
  • Center: Positions the data label text on the center of the chart.
  • Inside: Positions the data label text inside the chart.
  • Outside: Positions the data label text outside the chart.
  • Auto: The default setting, same as Outside for chart.

LineStyle

The line style for the border of the bars. Includes the following properties for the customization.

• LineColor: Specify the color of the border around the bars.
• LineStyle: Specify the line style of the border around the bars as 'Dashed', 'Dotted', 'Double', etc.
• LineWidth: Specify the line width of the border around the bars.

Name

The name of the plot. By default, a chart containing a single plot has the plot name as 'Plot1'.

Tooltip Template

Contains the tooltip template settings. You can choose from the list of predefined settings or set your own in the Expression Editor.

Configurations

BarLineStyle

The BarLineStyle settings are applied when the ShowBarLines property is set to True.

• LineColor: Specify the color of the bar line.
• LineStyle: Specify the bar line style as 'Dashed', 'Dotted', 'Double', etc.
• LineWidth: Specify the bar line width.

ClippingMode

The Clipping Mode determines how a plot extends within the plot area. The ClippingMode can be set to:

• Fit: Utilizes the free space to fit the plots within the plot area.
• Clip: Clips off the excess area lengths toward the right or the bottom.
• None: Same as 'Fit' for charts.

Offset

Indicates the plot offset in percentage.

Opacity

The Opacity is the percentage value of the opacity of the plot fill color. 100% opacity means that the plot fill color is opaque while 0% opacity means that the plot fill color is completely transparent.

Overlays

Overlays property is a collection for superimposing the data trend on a plot. For more information, see Trendlines topic.

Rules

Rules control the appearance of plots based on specified conditions. For more information on conditions, see Rules topic.

ShowNulls

Represents how null or empty values should be shown in the plot - Gaps (default), Connected, or Zeros.

ShowBarLines

Setting this to True shows the bar lines in the chart.

Design

BarSettings

The BarSettings specifies the bar-style settings.

• NeckHeight: Determines the bar neck height in percent.
• BottomWidth: Determines the Bottom width in percent.
• Overlap: Determines the Percentage bar overlap.
• TopWidth: Determines the Top width in percent.
• Width: Determines the bar width in percent.

Encodings

Category Encoding 

The Category Encoding of a plot is a set of properties that determine the period over which the plot generates connected data points representing those above Data Values. The Category encoding includes the following properties.

Values

The Values property is the collection and takes the field as a category. See the Create Gantt Chart walkthrough where Values is set to [Vaccine].

SortingField

The SortingField defines the order in which the categories are displayed. It takes the default same as the Values field, but you can also specify another field to sort the categories.

SortDirection

The SortDirection defines the ascending or descending order in which the categories should be sorted.

SortingAggregate

The SortingAggregate property specifies the aggregate to use for sorting the categories. 

Color Encoding

The Color Encoding enables the color legend of the Details or Category Encoding. It includes the following properties:

Action

The action to take when the color legend is clicked.

Aggregate

Aggregates the value of Color expression.

ShowValuesName

If set to True, the legend is displayed based on the value specified in Details encoding or Color encoding.

Values

The Values is the collection where the value of the Color expression is specified. However, the charts take the first item from the collection. See the Create Gantt Chart walkthrough where Values is set to [Range].

Details Encoding

The Details Encoding breaks down the data values into subcategories and produces additional groups. The Details property is the collection of items and each item includes the following properties that define the Details encoding:

• ExcludeNulls: This property determines whether to exclude the null details values in the dataset field.
• Group: This property determines the area subsection arrangement of the plot.
  • Stack: You can use this value to configure a Stacked plot.
  • Cluster: You can use this value to configure subsections that overlap each other.
  • None: Equals to Cluster.
    See the Create Gantt Chart walkthrough where Group is set to 'Cluster'.
• SortDirection: This property determines the sorting direction, ascending or descending in which the subcategories should be sorted.
• SortingAggregate: The SortingAggregate property specifies the aggregate to use for sorting the subcategories. 
• SortingField: It defines the order in which the subcategories are displayed. See the Create Gantt Chart walkthrough where SortingField is the [Start] field.
• Values: The Values could be one or more bound field references, and the bound DataSet records with the same values of these fields come under the same subcategory. See the Create Gantt Chart walkthrough where Values is set to [Dose].

Values Encoding

The Values encoding specifies the data values and represents the collection of items and each item includes the following properties.

Type

The Type property provides 'Simple' and 'Complex' options to choose from. However, for Gantt charts, 'Complex' is acceptable.

Subfields

The Subfields property is the collection and takes a start field that goes to the lower value and an end field that goes to the upper value.

Aggregate

To show aggregated values such as Average, Count, and Sum instead of individual values, specify an Aggregate function.

See the Create Gantt Chart walkthrough where Type is set to 'Complex' and Subfields are set to [Start] and [End] fields.

Text Encoding

The Text Encoding provides support of any dataset field in chart labels and tooltips and allows displaying additional info on the chart. When two text encodings are added, they are displayed by default with the ";" delimiter. A text encoding includes the following properties:

Aggregate

Aggregates the value of the Text expression.

Target

Specifies whether this text is for a Label or a Tooltip Label. The label format is controlled with the chart's Labels > Template property or Tooltip Template property.

The Template property can use both the predefined values and the added text encoding fields, for example:

Count:{Text0}
Sum:{valueField.value}

Template Key

A unique key, used in the chart plot's Labels > Template and Tooltip Template to access the text encoding value.

Value

A field, constant or expression to be displayed.