Changing Colors of Gant Charts

Mike Sferrazza

Is it possible to change the colors of the main timeline bars (not just sub-timelines) on a Project sheet in Gantt view? I do not like the grey.

Brett Evans

Mike,

you can do this easily in the conditional formatting.

Mike Sferrazza

Thanks Brett and Benjamin. It looks like the problem is with expandable tasks. The colors of the sub-tasks can be changed, but the overarching task is automatically set to grey. See below:

 

Benjamin Walker

You can right click the tasks

 

 

We do not offer the functionality to change the rollup/summary task bar colors at this time.

 

Shaine Greenwood

Hi Mike,

 

You're right, the color for the task bar of parent rows can't be changed but I've got your vote down for this on our enhancement request list for further consideration.

ScottR

I would like to add my vote for this enhancement, as well.

SmartSheet has evolved rapidly over the past few years and added a multitude of customization options but this use case, unfortunately, seems to have been overlooked.

Chris McKay

Hi Smartsheet,

Any word on whether this will be looked at in the near future? I'm at a loss (once again) to understand why Smartsheet forced the grey bars upon us. Why not just let us change them the same way we do for all the other tasks (i.e. right-click or use conditional formatting)?

On the subject of product enhancement requests, how do we know if submitted requests have been looked at (reviewed, actioned, declined etc.)? I have submitted ~10 requests and months later have not had any response apart from the initial automated email.

Shaine Greenwood

Hi Chris,

Our Product team looks at every request, although they may not respond to a request.

We prioritize requests based on customer demand and resources available. We typically don't decline product enhancement requests, but we also may not have a definitive decision to provide you on when your enhancement request will become developed and made available in Smartsheet.

Chris McKay

Thanks Shaine,

I appreciate the reply and can totally understand the constraints placed on the product team (resources, priorities etc.).

As the request were all submitted at the same time, were all detailed and even included mock-ups/screencaps I would have expected an overarching response advising whether they were feasible, or indeed already in the development roadmap. It could even be as simple as acknowledging that someone has read them (as you've done above).

The Smartsheet Community team seems to a better job of capturing these requests than the product team, as any requests submitted here are counted as a "vote" towards that request.

As an enterprise customer, I have a keen interest in where Smartsheet is headed and would like to have a say in what features are prioritised and developed (as do all users).

Shaine Greenwood

I hear you. I can also assure you that if you submit multiple votes via the enhancement request form, they are counted toward the demand for a feature being implemented. There are a surprising number of factors that go into our decision to allocate development resources toward a project. Something that may seem simple can still have unintended effects that we'd like to make sure we solve for before we start the development process.

We're also working on ways that we can offer more transparency to everyone on our development roadmap while still remaining competitive.

jason.fujisawa

I'd like to add my vote for custom coloring of task bars all the way through including key rows.  As I enhance our roadmap that includes multiple functional areas, we need the ability to distinguish bottlenecks where certain groups may or may not have an impact on each other.

Trevor M

We're way past seconding, but I Xth this request as well. When reviewing product roadmaps at a glance, it'd be super helpful to have the parent task bar the same color as its dependent tasks.

Michael Hoelscher

Another vote for ability to color summary / parent task bars.  Managers asking why my Gantt chart shows yellow shaded critical bars under a normal gray shaded summary bar.  I already have enough trouble convincing some Mgrs to allow Smartsheet instead of MS Project. 

Davide

I also add a vote for changing the grey color of the bars. 

I honestly don't understand why if there is the functionality for all other lines it's not implemented for the main ones...

For me, this is a key feature. It has made me abandon Wrike  and unfortunately will make me abandon Smartsheet until it is implemented. 

As a specific use case, I need to have different colors depending on the project, the visualization, the target executive changing either on priority, person, status of completion and department involved. 

It's too complicated to automate this so the best way is to give me freedom of changing colors as I want.

 

annie@integralads

I also vote for the ability to colour summary / parent task bars.

Journeyman

And so I do I.

As do I note countless others on other threads with different community managers. Do these CM people talk to each other?

Come on SmartSheet you've been gathering votes for over 3 years now. How many does it take?

Its beginning to feel like dealing with Microsoft. If you've become too big to listen then perhaps its time for us to switch.