Canva Gantt Chart: A How-to Information With Execs, Cons & Options

Gantt charts are probably the most versatile mission administration instruments there are as they can assist plan, schedule and monitor tasks. Nonetheless, not all Gantt chart software program has the options wanted. That’s why we’ve reviewed a few of the greatest Gantt chart software program options to assist make a extra knowledgeable resolution.

On this weblog, we’ll go over the important thing options and professionals and cons of a Canva Gantt chart, in addition to some options that can be utilized as an alternative.

What Is Canva?

Canva is a web-based graphic design instrument that enables customers to edit pictures and movies for inventive briefs, shows, web sites and plenty of different inventive tasks. For instance, it could possibly assist design printed merchandise, make a brand for a enterprise or create social media content material.

The software program makes use of a drag-and-drop interface to make the design course of simpler. Since its introduction in 2013, Canva has added companies reminiscent of a print product platform and video modifying instrument. It has a free mannequin, however customers can unlock premium options and improve to Canva Professional for skilled design instruments.

This has made Canva probably the most well-liked graphic design instruments utilized by inventive enterprise homeowners. It’s easy sufficient to make use of that novices could make a fast graphic on a collaborative platform. The net-based instrument has common updates and additions which are consistently enhancing its performance.

Does Canva Have a Gantt Chart?

Gantt charts are foundational instruments for managing work. Whereas Canva focuses on graphic design and providing customers a easy and efficient method to make fast designs, it falls quick on mission administration. It depends on the graphic creation of shows and different visible instruments. Nonetheless, it falls quick when managing these tasks with important instruments, reminiscent of Gantt charts.

Gantt charts are made up of two components. On the left is a spreadsheet that lists all of the mission duties, their length and associated prices and assets. On the suitable, this knowledge is populated on a visible timeline that exhibits your complete mission on one web page. Gantt charts can then plot milestones, hyperlink dependencies and extra, giving managers higher management when planning, managing and monitoring tasks.

Associated: Greatest Gantt Chart Software program Rankings

Canva has templates and design instruments that may mimic a Gantt chart, however lack the options that mission managers want to make sure their tasks are delivered on time and inside finances. Design apps like Canva aren’t constructed for that form of work.

Brief Reply: Sure, Canva Has a Gantt Chart

Canva doesn’t have a built-in Gantt chart function however has free and paid productiveness and doc modifying instruments reminiscent of tables, graphs and charts that can be utilized to make a primary Gantt chart. To take action, export the Canva Gantt chart as a picture or PDF format and fix it to a mission documentation or presentation slides.

Lengthy Reply: Canva’s Gantt Chart Lacks Key Options for Venture Administration

Canva has Gantt chart templates to record duties and edit timelines and bars. These Gantt chart templates may add particulars, reminiscent of milestones and assignees. However as a result of Canva depends so closely on templates there’s restricted customization. This restricts inventive freedom and, extra importantly, limits the worth of utilizing an actual, strong Gantt chart.

Not utilizing an actual Gantt chart may imply the distinction between a profitable mission and a failure. Don’t take that danger. ProjectManager is award-winning mission and portfolio administration software program with highly effective Gantt charts which are straightforward to make use of. They will do every thing a standard Gantt chart can do, reminiscent of organizing duties, assets and prices, however transcend the fundamentals. Customers can hyperlink all 4 varieties of job dependencies to keep away from pricey delays, filter for the crucial path to determine important duties and set a baseline to trace deliberate effort in opposition to precise effort in actual time to remain on schedule and preserve to the mission finances. Get began with ProjectManager right this moment at no cost.

Canva Gantt Chart Options

As beforehand talked about, Canva permits customers to assemble a primary, visible approximation of a Gantt chart utilizing Canva’s graphic-design components. Whereas this may produce a easy timeline illustration, it lacks the performance, automation and data-driven capabilities of a real Gantt chart present in mission administration software program.

• Tables to construction job names and time durations.
• Rectangles and form components to characterize job bars.
• Drag-and-drop resizing to visually alter bar lengths.
• Shade fills to distinguish phases or job classes.
• Textual content bins for job names, dates and labels.
• Line and arrow components as an example dependencies visually.
• Grid and alignment instruments to create cleaner layouts.
• Templates that may function a place to begin for timeline-style designs.

What Venture Administration Options Is Canva Gantt Chart Lacking?

As a result of Canva will not be a mission administration platform, its makeshift Gantt charts don’t embrace any actual mission administration options. It can’t calculate schedules, monitor progress, handle assets or monitor budgets. Canva can solely show graphics—the operational and analytical capabilities required for managing tasks merely don’t exist within the instrument.

• Canva supplies no options for managing group capability or assigning assets, so workload distribution and utilization evaluation aren’t doable.
• There’s no logic engine for figuring out the crucial path—Canva can’t calculate FS, SS, FF or SF job dependencies.
• Monetary oversight instruments are absent; you may’t monitor mission prices, examine deliberate vs precise spending or construct finances variance stories.
• Baseline creation isn’t supported, which means there’s no method to freeze an unique plan or measure schedule or value deviations over time.
• Milestones can solely be drawn manually; Canva doesn’t help date-driven milestone mapping or computerized milestone updates.
• Progress monitoring isn’t inbuilt—you may’t replace p.c full, monitor job well being or generate standing summaries.
• Job relationships aren’t useful; whilst you can sketch dependencies visually, Canva can’t implement or replace them in response to schedule modifications.
• Canva provides no different mission views—options like kanban boards, dashboards, timeline views or job lists merely don’t exist.

The best way to Make a Canva Gantt Chart Higher With ProjectManager

Don’t let Canva preserve the facility of a Gantt chart past attain. Get a totally useful Gantt chart that may do rather more than the bare-bones ones customers make in Canva. Observe these steps to create a greater Gantt chart in ProjectManager.

Earlier than we dive into the method let’s rapidly go over a side-by-side comparability of ProjectManager’s Gantt chart and Canva’s Gantt chart.

Canva Gantt Chart	ProjectManager Gantt Chart
No actual job dependencies — solely drawn manually (not useful) ❌	4 absolutely useful job dependencies (FS, SS, FF, SF) ✅
No auto-shift habits — transferring a bar does nothing ❌	Automated cascading updates for all linked duties ✅
Milestones can solely be drawn as shapes ❌	Constructed-in milestones, subtasks and hierarchy instruments for correct scheduling ✅
No skill to set or examine baselines ❌	Full baseline monitoring and schedule/value variance reporting ✅
Single static visible — no true multi-project view ❌	Helps portfolio-level Gantt charts and multi-project roadmapping ✅
No value, finances or planned-vs-actual monitoring ❌	Tracks estimated vs. precise prices with real-time finances reporting ✅
No useful resource workload, allocation or utilization instruments ❌	Useful resource allocation, workload monitoring and utilization charts inbuilt ✅
No percent-complete monitoring — every thing should be drawn manually ❌	P.c-complete column with computerized sync to dashboards and stories ✅
No job prioritization or task-level metadata ❌	Precedence fields, customized columns and full task-level element panels ✅
Solely visible “sections” if manually drawn ❌	Helps full Work Breakdown Construction (WBS) hierarchy ✅
No column customization — it’s simply graphics ❌	Totally customizable columns for duties, dates, prices, assets and extra ✅
Exports are restricted to static pictures of your design ❌	Exports to PDF, Excel and pictures with structured mission knowledge included ✅
Handbook drag-and-drop of shapes (no precise scheduling logic) ❌	Superior drag-and-drop job scheduling with real-time recalculations ✅
No deliberate vs. precise length monitoring ❌	Tracks deliberate vs. precise hours routinely for schedule accuracy ✅
Solely primary templates for timelines, none for actual Gantt charts ❌	Prepared-made Gantt chart templates for a number of industries and use circumstances ✅

1. Begin a Free Trial

Take a free trial with ProjectManager. There’s no bank card information wanted. As soon as signed up, customers have 30 days to kick the tires and discover the options of ProjectManager. There are Gantt charts, after all, but additionally job and useful resource administration options, danger administration instruments and real-time dashboards and customizable stories to observe and management tasks to ship them efficiently.

2. Import Venture Duties Into ProjectManager

As an alternative of manually including duties into Canva, you may immediately import a number of columns of mission knowledge from current Excel spreadsheets, CSV recordsdata and even Microsoft Venture recordsdata.

 

3. Choose Choices

Now, resolve if this will likely be a brand new mission or if it needs to be added to an current mission. If it’s new, identify it, and if it’s being added to a mission, observe whether or not to maintain or delete the prevailing knowledge.

4. Create a Sturdy ProjectManager Gantt Chart with Extra Options Than a Canva Gantt Chart

A popup window will say, “Success!” exhibiting that the mission has been imported. It’s now an actual Gantt chart in ProjectManager. Go searching and see what our Gantt chart can do. It’s full of options, will be shared with the group and in addition hyperlinks to the opposite mission views (kanban boards, job lists, calendars, and so forth.) and informs different options, such because the dashboard, stories and workload chart.

 

Canva Gantt Chart Pricing

Canva doesn’t embrace a built-in Gantt chart in any of its pricing plans. All variations solely enable a manually designed, static timeline utilizing shapes, tables or stacked bar-style graphics. Nonetheless, chart availability varies by plan—some superior chart sorts and customization options are solely included in paid tiers.

• Free ($0): No built-in Gantt chart. Restricted entry to chart sorts; some superior charts and customizations are locked behind paid plans.
• Professional ($14.99/consumer/month): No built-in Gantt chart. Full entry to Canva’s chart library, together with stacked bar charts and extra customization instruments.
• Groups ($29.99/consumer/month): No built-in Gantt chart. Consists of all Professional chart options plus enhanced collaboration and asset administration.
• Enterprise (customized pricing): No built-in Gantt chart. Provides admin and model controls; chart performance stays the identical as Professional.

ProjectManager’s Gantt Chart Does Extra Than a Canva Gantt Ever May

Now it’s time to take a look at ProjectManager’s Gantt chart and see what it could possibly do. There’s no cause to ever return to Canva as a result of our Gantt chart seamlessly integrates with the remainder of our mission instruments. Meaning customers can monitor time and prices, stability workload and rather more.

Set Milestones & Observe Baselines

Milestones are represented by diamond icons. They’re used to point necessary mission dates, reminiscent of the tip of 1 section and the start of one other. They can assist monitor progress, however for a extra highly effective monitoring instrument, set a baseline. As soon as the baseline is captured on the Gantt chart, customers get real-time knowledge on how the mission is doing. They will see deliberate prices in opposition to precise prices and deliberate progress in opposition to precise progress in actual time to assist ship the mission efficiently. Plus, it’s straightforward to filter for the crucial path. There are not any time-consuming and sophisticated calculations wanted. Strive that on Canva.

Filter by Precedence, Dependencies & Extra

The Gantt chart will be filtered in any variety of methods to permit mission managers to give attention to the knowledge they wish to see. For instance, they’ll filter by precedence to make sure these duties are being executed in a well timed vogue. It’s additionally doable to filter by dependencies to keep away from delays. Canva can’t try this. A giant distinction between Canva and ProjectManager is that customers can hyperlink all 4 varieties of job dependencies. There are additionally personalized tags to make duties simpler to search out. It’s straightforward to assign group members to duties, see their availability and higher handle assets.

What Can You Use a Canva Gantt Chart For?

Canva Gantt charts are simplistic and solely enable for primary job administration and scheduling. Customers can plan and schedule mission duties, monitor their progress on timelines and visualize the mission in a single place. Whereas these Gantt charts will be useful in particular conditions, they aren’t practically as highly effective as mission administration software program.

The best way to Create a Canva Gantt Chart

When you’re nonetheless inquisitive about find out how to make a Canva Gantt chart, we’ve outlined what you must know. There are two primary strategies for making a Gantt chart in Canva. Use a free or paid Canva Gantt chart template or make one from scratch. Right here’s a fast overview of each of those approaches.

Use a Canva Gantt Chart Template

Utilizing a template is the simplest method to make a Gantt chart in Canva.

1. Select a Gantt Chart Template From Canva’s Library

First, log into the Canva account and use the search field to search for a Gantt chart template.

 

 

There are a whole bunch of Gantt chart templates in Canva’s library. Nonetheless, a few of them aren’t free and require a paid plan. Additionally, it’s necessary to note that almost all Gantt chart templates out there in Canva’s library are uploaded by customers, so there is perhaps some errors.

 

 

2. Edit the Canva Gantt Chart Template

Then after having chosen a template, edit it additional to visualise the mission schedule as proven within the picture under. We edited this Canva Gantt chart template to record mission duties and their due dates on a visible calendar.

 

That is essentially the most primary model of a Gantt chart. Ideally, a Gantt chart ought to monitor many different job particulars reminiscent of assets, prices, precedence, standing and extra. Sadly, many of the mission templates in Canva’s library have the same degree of element as this template. On high of that, modifying these Canva Gantt chart templates will be laborious to do, as most of them don’t operate as spreadsheets however reasonably as pictures which modifying requires plenty of guide work.

Make a Canva Gantt Chart From Scratch

So as to add extra particulars to a Canva Gantt chart than these provided by Canva’s templates, make one from scratch by following the steps under.

1. Make a Gantt Chart Grid in Canva

The best method to make a Gantt chart grid in Canva is to insert a desk. To take action, open a brand new Canva presentation, whiteboard or doc view and search for a desk utilizing the “Parts” search field on the left facet of the display. By default, the desk will include three columns, so start by modifying these three columns, one for itemizing your mission duties and their begin and finish dates.

 

Now let’s add the fields we referenced, a precedence degree, assignee and estimated value of every mission job. To do that, merely click on the three dots of the right-end column of the desk after which click on “Add column.” When carried out, the Canva Gantt chart grid ought to seem like this.

 

 

2. Make a Gantt Chart Timeline in Canva

Now, create the opposite half of the Canva Gantt chart, the stacked bar mission timeline. To take action, add 12 columns to the suitable and one row on the high.

 

 

Then merge these cells till it appears like the instance under.

 

 

Lastly, insert rounded sq. shapes and alter their measurement to suit every of the mission job rows to point their length. Fill out all of the Gantt chart grid cells with the mission data and alter the duty bars accordingly.

 

 

ProjectManager Has Higher Gantt Charts Than Canva

As acknowledged above, ProjectManager is software program particularly designed to plan, schedule and monitor tasks from begin to end, which is the principle cause why it provides a a lot better Gantt chart instrument than Canva. Let’s zoom into different benefits of utilizing ProjectManager’s Gantt charts.

Superior Gantt Chart Options

ProjectManager is likely one of the greatest Gantt chart software program attributable to its superior mission administration options that can assist you to hyperlink 4 varieties of job dependencies, allocate assets, determine the crucial path of your mission, monitor mission prices and rather more. Use the duty data panel popup on the Gantt chart to alter precedence ranges, set milestones, add inter-project dependencies and extra.

 

A number of Venture Administration Instruments

Use different mission administration instruments apart from Gantt charts reminiscent of kanban boards, mission calendars, job lists, roadmaps and spreadsheets. Every of those provides a distinct perspective in your tasks.

Observe Venture Progress, Schedule, Sources & Prices

Actual-time dashboards routinely accumulate knowledge from the Gantt chart in actual time and present mission metrics in easy-to-read charts for a high-level overview of the mission standing. Customizable stories get extra detailed data on mission and portfolio standing, workload, timesheets, variance and extra.

Useful resource administration instruments, such because the color-coded workload chart and group web page present how work is being distributed amongst group members so you may reallocate assets to maintain groups working at capability and improve productiveness.

Extra Free Gantt Chart Templates

Whereas Excel is the most well-liked selection for Gantt chart templates, different free productiveness instruments can assist make a Gantt chart.

Whereas all these Gantt chart templates can be utilized to make a easy mission schedule, they’ll’t compete with the performance provided by mission administration software program like ProjectManager.

Associated Gantt Chart Content material

We’ve created dozens of blogs, templates and guides to assist perceive find out how to use Gantt charts to handle tasks. Listed here are a few of them.

ProjectManager is on-line mission and portfolio administration software program that connects groups within the workplace, out within the discipline and anyplace in between. They will share recordsdata, remark on the job degree and keep up to date with e-mail and in-app notifications. Be a part of groups at Avis, Nestle and Siemens who use our instrument to ship profitable tasks. Get began with ProjectManager right this moment at no cost.