How to Add Milestones to Gantt Chart in Excel (with Quick Steps)

In many cases, we need to add milestones to the Gantt Chart. In Microsoft Excel, a swift method is available to do it. Although you can’t do it directly, there are a few tricks that you can apply. This article demonstrates how to add milestones to a Gantt Chart in Excel.

What Is a Gantt Chart?

A Gantt Chart is one kind of graph that generally shows the relationship between tasks or milestones and time. It is a very useful tool to keep track of a project. A Gantt Chart can help you reflect on the following things through a chart.

Starting and ending dates of various tasks or milestones.
Overlapped tasks or milestones over a certain period of time.
Duration of each task or milestone.
A list of all the tasks or milestones.

How to Make a Gantt Chart in Excel

Unfortunately, there is no direct way to make a Gantt Chart in Excel. However, you can use a Stacked Bar Chart and then apply some changes to that chart, which will eventually give you a Gantt Chart. Now, there are some quick steps to this procedure.

Let’s assume you have a dataset where you have different Task Names for a project, their Start Date, and Duration. In this case, each task competition will help you achieve a milestone.

At this point, if you want to create a Gantt Chart in Excel, the very first step you need to follow is to insert a Stacked Bar.

First, select the whole column for Start Date. In this case, we select the range C4:C13.

Here, cell C4 is the column heading, and cell C13 is the last cell of the column Start Date.

Then, go to the Insert tab.
After that, select Insert Column or Bar Chart.
Next, click on Stacked Bar to insert a Bar Chart.

After that, right-click on the chart.
Then, click on Select Data.

At this point, click on Add under Legend Entries (Series).

Right now, add cell D4 as the Series name.
Also, select range D5:D13 as the Series Values.
Then, click on OK.

Next, click on Edit under Horizontal (Category) Axis Labels.

At this point, select the range B5:B13.

In this case, cells B5 and B13 are the first and last cells of the column Task Names respectively.

Next, click OK.

Now, again press OK to exit the Select Source Data box.

At this point, we are done with the very first step of creating a Gantt Chart.

After finishing the first step, follow 7 more steps to make a Gantt Chart in Excel to get an output as shown in the screenshot below.

How to Add Milestones to Gantt Chart in Excel: 4 Quick Steps

Now, suppose after creating a Gantt Chart, the next thing you want to do is add milestones to the Gantt Chart in Excel named Phase 1 and Phase 2. At this point, you can follow the below steps to do so.

⭐ Step 01: Create a Table to Insert Milestones Data in Gantt Chart

In this step, we will create a table starting from a new column as shown in the screenshot below to add milestones to the Gantt Chart.

For each phase, you have to write the dates twice each and assign a value of 0 to one and 90 to the other.
The Milestone End Date is the start date of the last task of the milestone plus the duration.

⭐ Step 02: Insert a Data Series for Milestones in Gantt Chart

After creating the table, in the next step, we will insert a new Data Series into the Gantt Chart using values from the table.

First, copy the cells for Milestone Start Date and Values for Phase 1.
Now, select the chart and paste it.

In this case, Excel will paste the copied cells as a Series 3 and a Stacked Bar Chart by default.

⭐ Step 03: Change the Chart Type of the Data Series

In this step, we will change the chart type of the Data Series to a Scatter with Straight Lines chart.

First, select the new Data Series and right-click on it.
Next, click on Change Series Chart Type.

Then, for Series 3 change the chart type to Scatter with Straight Lines.

Now, you can see a preview of the output.
Next, click OK.

⭐ Step 04: Format and Edit the Chart

Excel will automatically add a secondary for the new chart type. In this step, we will format and edit the secondary axis and legends to make our Gantt Chart more understandable and visually more appealing.

First, double-click on the secondary axis to open the Format Axis options.
Next, go to Axis Options.
After that, change the Maximum value to 90.