Getting started

1. Install Chronolane

In Excel, open Home › Add-ins (on some versions Insert › Get Add-ins), search for Chronolane and choose Add. You can also start from the AppSource listing. There is nothing to download and no account to create.

Once it is installed, a Chronolane tab appears on the ribbon. If your organisation manages add-ins centrally, your admin can deploy it for everyone; see Installing for a whole organisation.

2. Open the pane

Choose Chronolane › Open Chronolane. The pane opens on the right side of Excel with three pages at the bottom:

Timeline — your timeline’s parts (Timescale, Tasks, Milestones, Dependencies, Swimlanes, Workdays) and the sheet enhancements. Tap a row to open its editor.
Templates — ready-made sheets to start from.
History — snapshots you can restore.

The header shows whether the timeline is in sync with the sheet. ⋯ holds Refresh from sheet, Show me around, Help & docs, Send feedback and Delete timeline. Ctrl K opens a search over every setting and action.

3. Create a timeline from your table

Go to the sheet with your plan. Chronolane needs one row per task with a start date and an end date; a task name, duration, % complete, dependencies, an ID or WBS number and a lane (phase, category…) are picked up too if you have them.

On the Timeline page, Chronolane shows the columns it found, one row per role. Check them and use Change for any it got wrong. A missing required column is marked in red with a column picker.
Choose Create timeline. Date headers and bars are drawn to the right of your table.

A few things happen to the sheet when you do this:

If your data isn’t an Excel table yet, it is converted into one. Only the first table on a sheet is used.
The task, start and end columns move to the front of the table and are frozen, so they stay in view while you scroll the timeline.
A hidden Row ID column is added at the end of the table. Leave it in place — it is how Chronolane keeps track of each task when rows are sorted or moved.
Dates typed as text are converted into real Excel dates.
Rows whose start and end are the same day are drawn as milestones.

4. Or start from a template

The Templates page has seven starting points: Sprint Backlog, Infrastructure Cutover Plan, Regulatory Compliance Project Plan, Project Schedule, Basic Project Budget, Work Breakdown Structure and RAID Log. Preview shows the sample data; Add as sheet adds it to your workbook as a new sheet. Your current sheet isn’t changed.

Every template except the budget comes with its timeline already drawn; Infrastructure Cutover Plan and Project Schedule also start with swimlanes on.

5. Edit from either side

The table and the timeline stay in sync:

Type in the table — change a date, a name or a % complete and the bar follows.
Drag a bar sideways to move it; the start and end dates in the table update. Drag it up or down to reorder the row.
Click a bar and a card appears at the top of the Timeline page to restyle just that bar: fill, shape, outline and label.

When each column of the timeline is wider than a day (weekly, monthly or custom cell widths), a dropped bar needs a rule. Quick edit snaps it to the period; Precise asks you for the exact dates in a calendar. Choose under Timescale › When I drag a bar, or leave it on Ask the first time.

6. Changes wait for you

What you change in the pane’s editors isn’t written to the sheet straight away. Changes collect in a capsule at the bottom of the pane:

Review lists every change as old → new, with Undo on each.
Discard drops them all, after asking.
Apply writes them in one go, and History records the whole batch as one step.

A few actions don’t wait for Apply, because they change the table itself. Each asks first and saves a snapshot: applying a column mapping, adding a template sheet, rescheduling dependencies, restoring a snapshot and deleting the timeline.

7. Timescale and workdays

Open Timeline › Timescale. The date headers at the top of the editor are the control: tap a tier (top, middle or bottom) to choose its units — days, weeks, months, quarters or years — its label format and its colours. Below:

Cell width sets how much time one column covers: daily, weekly, monthly or custom. Changing it resets the tier choices.
Snap bars to cells lines bars up with whole columns; off, bars sit on their exact dates.

Timeline › Workdays & fiscal year sets your working days and holidays, which are shaded on the timeline, and the month your fiscal year starts, which changes the quarter and year labels. Working days only affect the shading: durations are still counted in calendar days.

8. Dependencies

Put the predecessors of each task in a dependencies column, using the values from your ID or WBS column — for example 3, 5 or 1.2; 1.3. Chronolane draws a connector from the end of each predecessor to the start of the task (finish-to-start).

In Timeline › Dependencies you choose:

When a predecessor moves — Move the tasks after it (automatic) or Leave them, flag it (manual). In manual mode, links that are out of sequence are drawn in red and counted, and Reschedule now fixes them in one go.
Date shift rule — Flexible moves a successor only if it would start too early; Strict keeps the same gap between linked tasks, forward and back.
Allow overlaps — lets a task start before its predecessor ends.

If links conflict — a loop, or a task that starts before its predecessor ends — the conflict review lists them. Loops must be removed; for the others you choose Keep link or Remove link one by one, or keep the rest in one click. Each link is previewed on the sheet while you decide.

9. Sheet enhancements

Below the timeline’s parts, Sheet enhancements format the table itself. Switch one on with its toggle and tap the row to set it up:

Cell styling — colour cells, or whole rows, by the value in a column (for example Status).
Icon mapping — add a symbol before or after a value (for example a flag for High priority).
Owner initials — show “AB ·” in each owner’s colour before their name.
Lane highlighting — tint each row by a column’s value.
Outline — group runs of rows with the same value into Excel row groups you can collapse.
Indent — indent task names from numbering such as 1.2.1, or from paths such as Q1/Planning.

They use Excel’s own conditional formats, row groups and indents, so they stay visible without the add-in, and your cell values are never changed. Switching one off removes what it added.

Swimlanes (under the timeline’s parts) draw a band and a title behind each run of rows that share a lane — map the lane column in Column mapping first. Drag a bar into another band and its lane cell updates.

10. History

Chronolane saves a snapshot automatically before big changes — every Apply, bulk edits, deleting rows or columns, reordering and sorting. It keeps the last ten; use Keep on up to five you want to hold on to.

On the History page, pick a snapshot on the scrubber or in the list and choose Restore. Your table and timeline go back to that moment; Go back to latest state returns you to where you were. Snapshots are stored inside the workbook.

Everything Chronolane adds lives in the workbook. Send the file and the timeline goes with it; people without the add-in see it as drawn, and can edit it with the pane once they add Chronolane.

Remove a timeline: ⋯ › Delete timeline removes the chart, date headers and Chronolane settings from that sheet. Your table data stays, and History keeps a snapshot from just before.
Uninstall: in Excel, open Home › Add-ins (or Insert › My Add-ins), find Chronolane and choose Remove. Timelines already drawn stay in your workbooks.

Stuck? The Support page answers the common questions, and a real person reads every email.