Project Tracking Tools Excel Free With too many tasks, work-at-home parents cannot simply hope that their kids remember every single homework assignment. You must follow up and assign a status to each task (completed, in progress, not started yet, etc.) to be able to keep track of your employee’s performance.
It’s enough to make one contemplate just using some Excel templates to do the work — and that’s actually not a bad idea. Excel isn’t marketed as a project planner, but when it comes to project tracking, the platform is more powerful than most people realize.
Project managers, freelancers, and business owners that have a lot on their plate have always preferred project tracking tools. Project tracking tools will greatly help you organize your team’s workflow. With such tools, you can track time, resources, revision history, and other pertinent information needed to make the project successful. Through this article, we will provide a guide on 10 (free) project tracking tools for Excel users.
But will an Excel project tracker be powerful enough for you, or do you need a platform designed specifically for project management? Here’s what you need to know about Excel project management before you make that decision.
When should you use Excel for project Tracking
It’s a tough question — on one hand, you risk being stuck in the middle of a project with a tool that lacks the advanced features needed to properly execute daily tasks, while on the other hand, you may spend thousands of dollars on software that’s more powerful than you need it to be.
When Excel is the best choice
Sometimes less is more. Just because you can purchase fancy project-tracking software platforms out there doesn’t mean you should open up your wallet. Here are a few reasons to eschew those solutions for Excel:
- You’re a one-man band: If you’re, say, a small contractor firm consisting of just yourself or a couple of others, you don’t need a platform that’s loaded with features and geared toward large enterprise firms.
- You just want something easy: Even the easiest-to-use project management software platforms have a learning curve. With Excel, you just punch in your task list, materials orders, man-hours, or whatever else you want to track right in the spreadsheet.
- You want to save money: Good software is expensive, costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month. That money comes directly from your bottom line, so if Excel meets your needs, you can save a lot of money simply by declining to get specialized software.
When you should use project tracking software over Excel
As your business grows, you’ll find that Excel will struggle to keep up. Here are a few signs that you’re reaching the point where you need specialized project management software:
- You have more than a few employees: Once you get past five or so employees, project management software starts to get more valuable. It’s hard to use a spreadsheet to manage a business with a lot of moving parts, so if you started with Excel, you will find as you grow that your projects outstrip its capabilities.
- Calculations are complex: A big problem with Excel is that even a small data-entry error can produce inaccurate results that could jeopardize your project. As calculations become more complex, you need project management software that can automate most of your data entry.
- You’re frustrated by Excel’s limitations: Excel’s primary appeal is in its simplicity, not in its features. If you want a platform that offers extras like job monitoring, bid management, design, and other aspects of project management, graduate from Excel to a dedicated software platform.
- You’re making costly mistakes: If trying to manage everything through Excel is causing you to make mistakes like missing certain deadlines or ordering the wrong amount of materials, you need more powerful software geared toward managing your projects.
Project Tracking Definition
Managing the tasks, resources and time for executing and completing more than one Project is called Multiple Project Tracking. We can use Excel Templates to Effectively Plan and schedule multiple projects in a single spreadsheet
Multiple Project Tracking Template Excel – Free Download
Here is Excel Template for tracking multiple projects. You can add as many projects which you want in this template. This template contains 10 Projects and 40 Tasks for illustration purpose. You can clear the existing data and add your own plans and tasks.
ANALYSISTABS – Multiple Project Tracking Template Excel
This Templates is developed using Microsoft Excel with Macros to handle multiple projects in a single workbook. And we have provided easy to use user interface and controls to navigate the template objects.
This template in .xlsm format and works on Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 in both Windows and Mac. And here is the .xls format of the Template for Excel 2003 Version. This works in Excel 2003 and above.
Download Multiple Project Tracking Template for Excel 2003 Version (.xls format)
Please Check Our Premium Project Management Templates
How to Track Multiple Projects in Excel
Excel is very useful for tracking Multiple Projects in Excel. You can download our multiple projects tracking template excel free download, open and create a new project. Then enter project plans and assign to resources. It is very easy to manage multiple projects using this simple and easy-to-use Template.
You can download the template and use this as a resource planning template for multiple projects. We have added free excel project management tracking templates in this project tracking template. We have included multiple project dashboard templates in excel, Gantt charts for multiple projects, multiple project timeline templates in excel, and multiple project status report templates.
Elements in Multiple Project Tracking Excel Template
Here are the most important elements in the Multiple Project Tracking Template. We must include these elements for effectively manage and tack the tasks of multiple projects.
Multiple Project Details
You can see the name of the Project, Name of the Customer and Name of the Project Manager. This helps quickly understand the Project and Responsible Managers. So that we can contact for any important communications or suggestions. You can add Project brief in the Summary sheet and Add one more cell to link respective Project Information
Multi-Project Selector
Drop-down list to select a required project from the list of projects. You can select All Projects or any one project to see the respective Task and details. When you select All Projects in the drop-down list, it will consider all the tasks and projects in the data sheet. If you choose any one project, this will populate the summaries of respective project.
Multi-Project Summary
This will provide the status of the multiple projects at one glance. You can add new projects and manage the project labels here. This will update the Project Summary Chart automatically.
High Level Project Status
Multiple Project Status Report Template helps quickly to view the progress of multiple projects. You can see the project schedules, actual project start and end dates including % of work completed. You can also add Total number of hours required or total number of FTE working on each Project.
Multiple Project Tasks by Status
Here you can see the number tasks with different status of the Projects Tasks. We have given Tasks with 0%, these are new tasks and not yet started. Tasks between 1% and 25% Progress, these tasks are started but initial phase. And Tasks between 25% and 50%, tasks which are completing half of the work. Task between 51% and 75% Task completed half of the work. Tasks between 76% and 99%, Task completed most of the work and in the final stage. And finally, Task with 100% completion, these are the task completely developed.
Multiple Project Tasks Scroll Bars
We have provided Two Scroll bars to scroll the items on Gantt Chart Area of Multiple Project Template. You can use Horizontal Scroll bar to scroll the Time frames (days). And You can use the vertical scrollbar to scroll the items or records on the Gantt Chart. So, using these two controls, you can see all data of any required project. You can add more controls to see the Project Gantt Chart By Day, Week, Month, Quarter and Year. These are advanced options of Gantt Chart, very useful when we have more number of tasks.
Other important Elements in this Project Tracking Template are Remarks and Toggle Controls in the Project Plan Sheet. Field to be included in the Data Sheet. And Navigation button in the Details sheet.
Multiple Project Tracking Spreadsheets
We made the template with a simple and easy-to-understand interface for tracking multiple projects. We have 5 spreadsheets in this Template. And each spreadsheet is created for different purposes. Here are the spreadsheets in this template with clear objectives and explanations of controls in each Worksheet.
Details Spreadsheet:
The objective of the Details worksheet is to provide a quick brief about the Multiple Project Tracking Excel Template. Her you can find the compatibility and version information. Brief about the Project Plan Template.
And we have provided Password to Un Lock the Spreadsheets and simple usage instructions.
Navigation buttons in Details sheet:
- Project Gant Button: You can click on this button to go to the Main Gantt sheet Template Sheet.
- Data sheet button: Clicking on the Data sheet button will take you to the Data Sheet Tab. You can add your task for each Project.
- Advanced Templates Button: This will activate the worksheet where we have shown some of our premium Templates.
- Premium Templates Button: This will take you to our website where you can download Premium Project Tracking Templates.
- Visit Our Blog button: Here you can ask questions about our multiple project scheduling tracker and other project management templates.
- Sharing of Multiple Project Tracker Template: You can share this template with your friend and colleagues. So that will have the opportunity to download our Free or Premium Project Tracking Templates.
Project Plan Tab:
Project Planning Tracker is the main sheet in the template. You can see all your projects and plans in a Dashboard and view timelines in the Gantt chart. You can select any Project using drop-down list and see its Tasks and Overall Project KPI Metrics, Project Status and % Progress completed.
Projects Summary Sheet:
Project Summary Template helps you to understand high level KPIs metric by each Project. You can see the Overall % completion of Project and % work remaining. We can also find Number of Tasks in the Project and Start Date and due date of the Project. And Number of days required to complete all tasks of a Project.
Data Sheet Tab:
Data Sheet Template is created to enter all your tasks and plans of your projects. You can select a project and respective tasks and activities to tack. Here are the important fields and data capturing in the Data Sheet.
Project: A drop-down list is available to select a Project Name. It will show you list of Projects added in the Summary sheet and you can choose any project to add tasks.
Task: It is your activity, you can write the title of your task. You can maintain a list of tasks in a spate sheet and change the cells to have a drop-down list. So that it will become easy to add tasks and save time. This helps when you have pre-defined list of common tasks performing in your team.
Responsible: This is the name of the person who is responsible to complete a task. You can maintain a list of your team members and create list as explained above.
Start date: Date of the Day which you are going to start this task. This may depend on your previous tasks and availability of the inputs. Also depends on the resource bandwidth.
Days Required: You can mention the number of days required to finish the task. You can add more features to ignore the holidays and weekends.
Progress: This is the %of work completed, you need to update daily. So that your Project Dashboard and Gantt will reflect the accurate status of your Projects.
Additional Fields: We have created the template with minimum required fields, you can add more fields if required and customize the template accordingly.
Advanced Project Tracking Template Worksheet:
We have created a spate worksheet to showcase our Advanced Multiple Project Tracking Templates. You can click on the button to visit our site and have a look. If you need more features, you can opt the advanced tracking templates to effectively manage multiple projects.
Steps to Track Multiple Projects using Excel Templates
Now, let us see the simple steps to track the multiple projects using this Excel Templates.
- Step 1: Download the Excel Template and Save it in your local folder (personal documents folder)
- Step 2: Open the Template and Go to the Summary Sheet. And Change the names of the Projects.
- Steps 3: Now go to Data Sheet to add new tasks. Clear the existing Data it the Table, and add new Tasks under any project with required information.
Adding Projects in Excel Template
Adding a Project in this Template is very easy. We have created this template to support multiple Projects. So, you can add any number of projects to track effectively. Here is the Process of adding new projects.
- Go to the Projects Summary sheet in the Template
- Clear the existing sample Projects in Colum B, Range B4 to B13.
- Now enter your Project Titles from Range B4
We have total 10 sample projects in the sheet, you can have more than 10 projects and drag down the formulas in columns C to H.
Adding Tasks in Multiple Projects Plan Data Sheet
We have seen how to add new projects, let us see the process of adding new tasks. Data Sheet is created to add and maintain all your project activities.
- Go to Data Sheet in the Template.
- Clear the existing sample data in the Table.
- Select the Project Title in the Project Column.
- Add New Task Title in the Task Column.
- Assign the Task to a Team Member under Responsible Column.
- Enter the Date when your team member start working on the task.
- Specify number of man-days required to complete the task. This may vary from person to person. And the available bandwidth.
- And Update the Progress % completed on daily.
Resource Planning Template for Multiple Projects
We have provided easy to use Resource Planning Template for Multiple Projects. You can assign the resource to each project in the data sheet. You can download our Project Resource Planning Template for more advanced features.
Resource Planning Template Excel – Free Download
- Assign the resource to multiple Projects
- View the resource bandwidth by project
- Allocate the Resource based on the availability
New Features in Project Tracker
We have added many new features in the Multiple Project Tracking Template. We have added more Status segments under Total Tasks.
- We have formatted the Pie charts which is showing the overall Progress.
- A separate drop-down list to select a project
- And a formula at Range K1 to show total tasks in the selected Project.
- Separate Summary sheet to add and maintain the Projects.
- New chart in the summary sheet to show the Status of Projects.
Project Tracking Dashboard
Multiple Project Dashboard Template Excel is a dynamic dashboard. Excel Dashboard in this Multiple Project Tracking Excel Template is totally changed. We have linked the Charts and Status of the Projects with the section. We can see the change in the Dashboard when you change a Project in the drop-down at Range K1.
Alternatively, you can see all Projects at one time by selecting the ‘All Projects’ from the drop-down. So, this helps you to monitor your project one by one and all together.
ANALYSISTABS – Project Management Dashboard Template Excel – Free Download
- You can show or hide the Task grid using ‘Task Grid’ button in the Dashboard.
- Click on the ‘Gantt Chart’ button to toggle the Gantt chart in the Dashboard.
- Use the Vertical Scrollbar to scroll down or up the Project Tasks.
- Gantt Scroll bar helps you to scroll the Gantt chart horizontally.
Multiple Project Tracking Gantt Chart
We have linked the Gantt chart with all Projects. This will automatically change when you select any project from the drop-down. You can find dates on top of the Gantt, you can scroll towards right or left using Gantt Scrollbar in the Dashboard.
Download Latest Gantt Chart – Free Excel Template
- Green color indicates the %completion of a task
- Red color indicate % of days remaining for each task
- 15 time-points are showing on the Gantt Chart, you can customize if required.
- Check out our advanced Gantt Chart templates for more advanced features.
Multiple Project Tracking Software
We have created very powerful and easy to use Project Tracking Software. Please visit our site for more details. Here is the list of features in Multiple Project Tracking Software.
- Modern look and feel
- We can add any number of Projects
- Adding Projects, Milestones and Tasks is very easy
- Powerful and advanced Gantt Chart
- The popup Date picker will trigger automatically when it is a date field
- Option to specify holidays
- Multiple sections to analyze each aspect of your Projects
- Unique framework to customize the template as per your organization’s requirements.
Please let us know your feedback and suggestion on our Multi-Project Tracking Template. We will add new features and update this template regularly. so that you can download and have latest template. Please do not forget to like. Please share this template with you peers, managers, employees and other colleagues.
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Best use cases for Excel project tracking
Excel’s tools aren’t specifically designed for project tracking like some software, but it will handle a lot of tasks associated with mapping out the project scope, handling the financials, and managing day-to-day tasks. Here are a few specific ways Excel templates will help with project planning.
1. Timeline
Excel can create a visual timeline chart and help you map out a project schedule and project phases. Specifically, you can create a Gantt chart, which is a popular tool for project management because it maps out tasks based on how long they’ll take, when they start, and when they finish.
The timeline tracker features horizontal bars representing each task, and they are aligned side by side to give you a complete picture of your project’s schedule and deliverables.
The Excel schedule template and other project planning tools take time to get the hang of, but they allow you to go beyond a simplistic list of deadlines. https://www.youtube.com/embed/xsxi4qaEnOg?feature=oembed
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsxi4qaEnOg.
2. Budget
Excel thrives when it comes to crunching numbers, so it is particularly well-suited for creating a project budget. This works best for small to mid-sized projects, as larger projects would outstrip the software’s capabilities.
Creating a budget is very easy if all you want is to track a short list of expenses against a list of income. But if you want to go beyond that and create more detailed budgets, Excel can do that as well. https://www.youtube.com/embed/uksHkXFcf-k?feature=oembed
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uksHkXFcf-k.
3. Task list
Excel will help you create a task list or to-do list so you can manage your own activities on a day-to-day basis — or, you can create one for your team each day to ensure your projects stay on track.
The obvious way to do this is to list each task, a description of what is to be accomplished, necessary resources, the responsible employee, and so on. However, you can make the to-do list more dynamic and automated if you’re willing to put the time into it.
4. Project tracking
Once the project is set in motion, you can use Excel as a project tracker and manage any issues that come up. Create columns for the name of the project, the task, the manager in charge, duration, progress, budget vs. actual, and so on.
This shows you how close tasks are to completion, what’s over budget, and anything else you want to monitor.
You can then use this data to create charts that help you visualize the status and progress of projects so you’re not just looking at a set of numbers. https://www.youtube.com/embed/5qtSioTE2wY?feature=oembed
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qtSioTE2wY.
5. Project review
Thanks to all the data you collected, creating customized reports and analytics that will help you break down your performance after the project is much easier. Excel has number-crunching tools that can automatically generate these reports based on the inputs you choose — which also gives you endless customization options.
It’s complicated, but once you learn how to do it, you’ll be able to make educated decisions about future projects. https://www.youtube.com/embed/qPKFlVnzv5c?feature=oembed
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPKFlVnzv5c.
Conclusion
Taking a look at the various available project tracking tools in the market, some of you might have known that there are both free and premium versions. An increasing number of companies have been using Excel for their projects as it is easy to be implemented and has great adaptability to most of your business needs. It, therefore, comes as no surprise that Excel Project Tracking Tools are very handy in organizing your projects. You can add a list of tasks and subtasks with their specific details such as expected deliverables, dates for completion, start date, relevant resources etc. Although these feature-rich applications available online in paid version offers additional features such as task dependencies and resource requesting plan etc., the standard excel sheets offers you more than what you need to get things done.