Is it possible to create 'GANTT' type charts with data from access?

[THEGREEK]

I was just wondering if it's possible to created gantt charts from within access. I have dates(milestones) and statuses for each date, would this even be possible or am I wasting my time?

Thanks for any help,

THEGREEK

 

[MichaelRed]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,

Possible, yes. But I wouldn't advise undertaking it unless there was some HUGE need. AND some reason to NOT use other products.

It would basically reduce to a horizontal bar chart, with each activity plottet along the "Y" axis and the dates along hte "X" Axis. Some dummy 'fill' from the start (Min(X)) to the actual start for each activity.

LOTS of problems after this:

Ms. Access normally places entire chart on single page, so time scale may be compressed to the extent that it is useless.

Number of activities would (likewise) be limited to the number of "bars" convenient to a single page.


An alternative MIGHT be to use Ms. Project for the gantt chart generation, but Ms. Access to generate (and Maintain) the data for Ms. Project.

In my humble opinion, this would be cheaper than attempting to do you own entire chart library.



MichaelRed
mred@duvallgroup.com
There is never time to do it right but there is always time to do it over

 

[THEGREEK]

Thanks Michael,

Is there a good web-site where I can learn more about using MS Project w MS Access?

Thanks for the advice,

THEGREEK

 

[MichaelRed]

I don't know of any web sitews specializing in this, however the MS Projects info gives the data schema of the projects. From this, you should be able to generate code to manipulate the data appropiatly.

MichaelRed
mred@duvallgroup.com
There is never time to do it right but there is always time to do it over

 

[RSGB]

Hi

If you haven't found a solution for this, I'm about to investigate an OCX which allows gantt charts in access. It's called phGantt from

http://www.plexityHide.com

and if I can work out how to use it OK then it could be a real neat solution :-0.

Laterzzz

 

[scking]

I have used Access to interface to MS Project 98 over the past five years on a production system. It works great but you need to learn how to build an MPX file which is the interface file for Project. There isn't a lot of documentation on the subject but Microsoft had a document, installed with Project 4 called 'Macro Commands' and I got the MPX file format from

http://www.roads.lut.ac.uk/MPX-File-Format.txt

quite a while back. When I contacted Microsoft they provided me with and electronic document with detailed documentation about the Project code. There are a lot of Access-to-Project issues to learn but once those are picked up the power is pretty amazing. You can build Project tables, views, macros, filters, and control how each object is displayed in the bar styles. Only take this course if you are serious about developing the applications.

Steve Growth follows a healthy professional curiosity

 

[TheInsider]

Hi,
I did this recently with MS Graph. Use a stacked bar chart, then create a column which holds indentation values and another that holds the actual time values that you wish to display. Then simply format the indentation column to be invisible.

ie.

Name Indent Length
---- ------ ------
ABC 1 3
DEF 4 2
GHI 6 1


ABC| XXX
DEF| XX
GHI| X
---------
012345678

If you provide your e-mail address, I'll see if I can find the example I was working on. Rob Marriott
rob@career-connections.net

 

[TheInsider]

Oops that should have looked like this:

Name      Indent     Length
----      ------     ------
ABC       1          3
DEF       4          2
GHI       6          1


ABC| XXX
DEF|    XX
GHI|      X
   ---------
   012345678

Rob Marriott
rob@career-connections.net