Coda vs Excel: Gantt charts

Gantt charts are invaluable for visualizing project plans. See how Coda and Excel stack up.

Al Chen

Solutions Architect at Coda

Coda vs Excel: Gantt charts

By Al Chen

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Tool consolidation · 6 min read
If you’ve ever planned a project or used any type of project management software, you’ve likely come across the odd Gantt chart or two. A Gantt chart is a visual timeline that shows the tasks for a project, their respective start and finish dates, and any overlaps. When Gantt charts first entered the scene in the early 1900s, they were considered revolutionary. Initially used in production planning to manage and increase efficiency—and later during World War I to manage the delivery of supplies—Gantt charts were lauded by some as “the most notable contribution to the art of management made in this generation.” Revolutionary as they were, Gantt charts weren’t very efficient to create. Each chart had to be drawn (and re-drawn) by hand, or created using bits of paper or blocks that could be moved when timelines changed—a time-consuming process. Now, of course, we have software that can do the creating and updating for us, meaning Gantt charts have had a revival. And rightly so—Gantt charts make it easy to visualize and share plans, highlight milestones, dependencies, and conflicts, and track how much progress is being made. They suit projects of all types and sizes, whether you’re building a product roadmap, designing a research project, or planning a product launch, event, or org restructure. But enough of the history lesson, you’re here to learn about an easier way to create Gantt charts. Let’s get to it.

What’s the best tool for creating Gantt charts?

 As mentioned, Gantt charts are now a standard feature of any project management software. But the go-to for many is Excel, because it’s familiar and you’re likely already using it to track or do other work. Plus, those cells kind of look like bars already, right? But there may be other tools better suited for your project tracking. Coda is a collaborative workspace that brings data, words, and workflows together all in one place. It can be used for many different use cases, with project management being one of the most common. Both Coda and Excel allow the creation of tables, charts, and other ways of tracking data but the approach is very different. At the most foundational level, Coda is designed as a set of building blocks that can be combined to create solutions for many different needs—think of it like a doc, spreadsheet, database, and project management tool all in one. Excel, on the other hand, is a spreadsheet software designed mainly for data analysis, financial tracking, and other primarily number-based work. Sure, you can use it for project tracking but it’s not really what it was designed for. That might be ok if you’re willing to use some workarounds and have specific reasons for wanting to use Excel. To help you evaluate whether Excel or Coda would be a better fit for your project tracking needs, let’s take a look at how you would use each tool to set up and manage Gantt charts.

How to create Gantt charts in Excel and Coda.

 Let’s start by going over the very basics of how you set up Gantt charts in Excel and in Coda. In Coda, Gantt charts are called timelines and you can use them to display any project or task list that has dates associated with it. Here at Coda, we use timelines for tasks like visualizing our product roadmap, tracking project deadlines, and organizing our company hackathon. Here’s how Excel and Coda compare for creating Gantt charts:
Excel
  • Excel doesn’t have a pre-defined Gantt chart type but you can simulate one by customizing a stacked bar chart to show tasks with a start and finish date or start and duration.
  • To create different views of the same chart, you need to duplicate the data and filter it to what you want, then set up a new chart each time. These different views won’t be connected, so if any data changes you’ll need to manually update it in each view.
  • You can customize the visual look of your chart with gridlines, labels, and bar colors.
  • To factor in non-working days into your task durations, you need to use the WORKDAY function and input the number of working days required for each task. This will then calculate a completion date factoring in weekends and your selected holidays. You cannot customize working days to be anything other than five working days.
Coda
  • There are two ways to create a timeline (Gantt) chart in Coda. Either type /timeline into the canvas or create a timeline view of an existing table. You can choose to have both the table and timeline view side by side, so you don’t have to choose between them. Each task in your chart must have a timeframe—either a start date and duration or a start and end date.
  • You can create different connected views of the same timeline displaying different information using filters, grouping, and sorting. For example, you might want to filter or group by task owner or by workstream. Or, you can display the same data in different formats, like a calendar or card view, for example.
  • You can also use conditional formatting to color code your timeline—for example, by status or owner—for easy at-a-glance viewing, and customize other visual options like how labels and people are displayed.
  • Coda allows you to set custom working days and holidays, and have those reflected in your timeline. For example, if you work a 4-day week or have certain days as company holidays, your timeline will automatically adjust so that tasks don’t start or end on non-working days.
Summary: While creating Gantt charts in Excel is possible, it requires quite a few steps and is limited in the amount of customization you can do. Coda’s out-of-the-box timeline chart is much simpler to set up and much more appealing to look at. Plus, you can create different views of the same data without having to copy-paste and risk them getting out of sync.

Using Excel and Coda to track key milestones.

 Milestones are essential for keeping a project on track. Without them, it’s easy to lose sight of the progress you’re making—or not making! Milestones also act as a natural check-in and help keep everyone motivated, so it’s helpful to highlight them in your timeline. Here are the options you have in Excel and Coda to do so:
Excel
  • There isn’t an out-of-the-box way to designate milestones in Excel. You can create some highlights using some workarounds, such as creating a column to designate certain tasks as milestones and then using formulas and the Wingdings font to display these tasks as a diamond on the chart (see an example here).
Coda
  • In Coda, simply toggle on the option to display milestones and tasks with no end date or duration will automatically be highlighted on your timeline. You can easily create new milestones directly from the timeline view or you can do so by adding items to your table and leaving the end date and/or duration blank.
  • Your milestones will be displayed with a small diamond on your timeline so they’re visually distinct from your tasks. You can customize them further using conditional formatting or create a filtered view that only shows these key milestones.
Summary: If tracking milestones is important for your project, it will be much easier to set them up in Coda. If you’re using Excel, you’ll need to do some workarounds to make this work, which may be time-consuming and prone to breaking.

Managing dependencies in Excel vs. Coda.

 Understanding dependencies is critical to accurately planning realistic timelines and helpful for spotting conflicts and risks in advance. The original versions of Gantt charts did not show dependencies but have evolved to include them. As your project progresses, it’s inevitable that some things will change and you may have to shift some dates around. When you have lots of dependent tasks, that can be a pain to manage, so an easy way to update your timeline saves a lot of time and manual effort. Here’s how you can manage dependencies in Excel and Coda:
Excel
  • To create dependencies in Excel, you need to ensure your table has a start date, duration, and end date column. You can then use a formula to automatically calculate the start date of a task based on the end date of the dependent task (see an example here).
  • To update task dates, you must manually update the date in the relevant row and column for each task.
  • Task dates will automatically update when the end date for a dependent task changes based on the spacing you specified in your formula.
Coda
  • Coda’s timeline view makes it easy to set up and enforce dependencies. Designate dependencies simply by dragging a line between the two tasks on your timeline view or by selecting them in the relevant column in your table view. Tasks can have multiple dependencies.
  • If you need to change the date of a task, you can simply drag and drop it on your timeline to the new date.
  • You can also choose to enforce dependencies so that tasks automatically move on the timeline when dependent ones do. You can choose how flexible dependencies are when timelines shift—i.e., whether they have to maintain the same timeframe between tasks.
  • To notify assignees about changes to related tasks, you can set up an automation to run each time a change is made.
Summary: With its drag-and-drop timeline, Coda is a much more intuitive system for creating and managing dependencies. Creating dependencies in Excel is possible but will be a more manual and rigid system, with less flexibility in how your dependencies shift based on changes.

Keeping your Gantt chart up to date in Excel and Coda.

 An effective project plan is one that is always up to date and accurate. That way, everyone trusts that they’re looking at the right information and you avoid miscommunications, overlapping efforts, and wasted time. Here’s how Excel and Coda help you keep your project tracking up to date:
Excel
  • Data in Excel is static and must be manually updated when changes are required. If you need data from other tools, you’ll need to manually collect it and copy-paste it into Excel—or chase up others to do so!
  • If you want to create multiple views of your project, you’ll need to copy-paste your data, adjust it, and create a new chart. If you need to change a date or any other information about a task, you’ll need to make sure it’s updated in each instance to keep the different views in sync.
  • You can use a select list column to customize how you want to track status. Conditional formatting lets you highlight cells in your table based on status but options are limited for formatting tasks within your chart, such as based on negative/positive, or max value—see an example here.
  • You can add a percentage bar chart to your sheet to show overall project progress (like this). You’ll need to manually update the percentage completion to update the progress bar.
Coda
  • Data in Coda is always live and dynamic. You can easily keep data up to date by automatically displaying when a task was last updated (and by who), syncing in data from other tools, and using conditional formatting to highlight anything that’s getting stale.
  • Rather than chase drivers to update the status of their tasks, you can use Coda’s automations to remind them via email, Slack, or Microsoft Teams. These reminders can be sent to only those who haven’t updated for X amount of time (the past week, for example), so you’re not bothering those who’ve already done their updates.
  • Because you can create different views of your data that always stay in sync, you can be sure everyone is looking at the same up-to-date information—no need to copy-paste to manage multiple copies of the data. These views can be different visualizations, like tables, charts, cards, and calendars or can be filtered to specific data or even customized to who is viewing.
  • You can choose exactly how you want to track status of your tasks, such as a select list of custom options, a done/not done checkbox, or a progress bar. And as previously mentioned, you can use conditional formatting to highlight tasks based on any criteria, making it easy to see status at a glance.
  • Coda also lets you easily add progress bars or other charts to your project tracker that will automatically calculate your overall project progress and always be up to date.
Summary: Coda has a number of features that make it easy to keep your Gantt chart up to date, including dynamic data, integrations, and automations. Updating your Gantt chart in Excel is a little more manual. The real difference here, though, is that with Coda you can create customized and personalized views of your data that all stay in sync—something that simply isn’t possible in Excel—and is incredibly helpful for creating a project tracker that your team actually wants to use.

Coda is designed for project tracking. Spreadsheets are not.

 As you can see from this comparison—and possibly from your own experience—building Gantt charts in Excel is possible but can be a time-consuming and fragile process that’s hard to keep updated. Coda’s out-of-the-box timeline feature is a much more intuitive and easy-to-use option for creating Gantt charts for all your tracking. Plus, with Coda you can create a single source of truth for your project with live data, custom views, embedded data from other tools, and even all your other context like writeups and designs. Coda also makes it easy to get started with templates and well-organized help documentation, videos, and an active maker community. To get started, try out this simple template for a timeline with dependencies. Or have a browse of all the project management templates for more inspiration.
Browse project management templates

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