How to Create a Project Tracker in Google Sheets

Coordinating a project with dozens of tasks, shifting deadlines, and multiple team members can be challenging. A clear, centralized project tracker is essential for keeping everything on schedule, and you can build a powerful one using a tool you already use every day: Google Sheets. This guide will walk you through creating a fully functional tracker from scratch, starting with the basics and adding advanced features like dropdown menus, visual progress bars, and even a Gantt chart.

Choose Your Template Wisely

Start with the Pre-built Template or Build from Scratch

Google Sheets offers a simple path for getting started with its pre-built templates gallery. To access the gallery, simply open a new Google Sheets worksheet in your browser and navigate to File → New → From template gallery and browse through the options available.

If you're already familiar with functions such as dropdown lists, checklists, conditional formatting, and chart & graph editing, this section may not provide much value for you. However, for those more novice to this process, there are several reasons to use the existing template: ease of use and the ability to dive right in is perfect for projects that are on a tight deadline. The ease of the template provides a great canvas to start with the foundational tabs already developed, and you can customize it by simply inputting the information it asks for. While certain inputs and charts may not be relevant to your current project, the pros far outweigh the cons for teams that do not want to spend several hours building this tracker from scratch.

Building Your Project Tracker From Scratch

For those who desire more customization and are focused on functionality, starting with a blank canvas is the better option for you and your project. Let's begin.

Project Background & Information

If your project involves external stakeholders such as a client, you'll want to include all necessary background and team information. Start building by opening a new Sheet with the following headers:

• Client: [Insert Name]
• Team Size: [Number of internal] + [Number of external stakeholders]
• Goal: What is the overall goal & purpose of this project? List the goal exactly as it is communicated to the team and its leaders. For many projects that include clients, this goal will be explicitly stated within the Statement of Work or the project agreement.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPI): Identify the metrics by which success will be determined. These should be data-driven metrics that can be easily compared at the final stage of the project.
• Deliverables: Similar to the goal above, the exact tangibles must align with what is stated in the Statement of Work. If something has changed since that document was signed, be sure to have all parties re-align via written confirmation on multiple communication channels.

This sheet should act as the project's "Source of Truth" for anything and everything related to this particular project. By leaving notes, client feedback, project background, etc., inside this "Source of Truth," it helps to re-align internal resources and allows managers to be more efficient with team materials and overall management. You can easily customize certain features so you are always aware of what's "on track," "at a standstill," or "overdue" to gain a clearer overall understanding of your team's current velocity.

Task Dependencies must be defined using "upstream" or "downstream" language as we need this to remain objective since different members view different tasks' importance as it pertains to their own set of deliverables that are relying on the completion of those upstream dependencies.

Project management sheets help you organize the overall workload and better visualize your team's bandwidth capacity. Knowing when your team members are at max capacity allows managers to re-route and de-prioritize specific tasks for another team member to step in, helping to eliminate unnecessary stress and prevent employee burnout from having too many high-priority tasks due in an unreasonable time period. Project managers who have this high-level view automatically gain a competitive advantage over someone trying to do the same thing in Excel without any sort of live collaborative input from those working on the project at large.

Task Status: This will give a live status report from your team members using the four statuses for each specific task, including (Not started, In progress, Delayed, On hold). With this, you can build pivot tables and charts that will automatically update, giving you real-time visibility into your progress towards goals at any given point throughout this time-sensitive and often complex undertaking.

Using simple conditional formulas to provide live visual cues/updates throughout the project's lifecycle ensures you are notified whenever something is potentially going off track. In order for these automated features within Google Sheets to function, you need to build some of the functionality for your data. The first step is creating a list of dropdown menus to insert your task status to stay in sync live without the need for manual check-ins over Slack or Microsoft Teams. This prevents project managers from falling into 'micro-management,' which is never the answer. The data will simply speak for itself once you've provided it with the logic to operate and update on its own by building custom rules. It is best to base colors on common knowledge of your particular audience, for example, using green for "Good, Safe, On schedule" and red for "Late, Overdue, Off-track." The color of text and the cell itself should change based on those conditions you specify. When project status changes from 'on track' to 'delayed by more than a day,' adjust the priority level for this task to high for all team members so that the whole team sees the shift in priority. They can begin working towards remedying the delay to get back on schedule, which should be the main priority for the next hour for all team members. This creates an environment where team members are not fearful of being the ones to change an 'on schedule' status to red, but one that shows where they need help. In healthy organizations, this feature serves as a tool to align internally, rather than something that makes the manager's job easier. It allows leaders to focus less on chasing tasks and more on teams supporting each other when they notice certain tasks are falling behind.

Let the project "Source of Truth" be your primary and most critical aspect as it holds the key for teams seeking to improve and grow. It is impossible, and dangerous, to attempt any new growth initiatives without any baseline understanding.

Adding a Chart Directly Inside a Particular Task's Row on Sheet

A simple SPARKLINE formula to visualize and give a bar graph for the duration of certain individual tasks that are time-sensitive gives you live status updates on all fronts. You can change chart types from a bar chart to a line or even a gauge chart for another visualization that is built to keep all members in sync, which cannot be understated.

Create a Stacked Chart Graph to Serve as a "Time-Tracker" Gantt Chart for this Project

Select the columns for Task Names and their Start & End dates by selecting that section and clicking the menu on the ribbon, navigating to Insert → then Chart → under "Setup," change the chart type to a Stacked Bar chart. The Stacked Bar Chart will still show some unnecessary data that is not needed for this particular use case. By selecting the option of "stacking to view 100%" you get a much clearer picture, making it easier to spot start/end dates for all tasks simultaneously with just one glance, allowing you and your team to spot if part of a workflow has potentially bottlenecked your upstream progress.

Final Thoughts

Building a detailed project tracker in Google Sheets puts you in control, enabling you to create exactly what your team needs to stay aligned and productive. Using dropdowns, conditional formats, and custom charts, you can create a centralized source of truth that clarifies responsibilities and keeps your projects moving forward smoothly.

While a solid Google Sheets tracker is great, it often leads to even more questions, such as retrieving data from other platforms like your ad accounts, CRM, or analytics tools. Stitching that together manually every week is slow and prone to errors. When we got tired of that repetitive cycle, we built Graphed. We connect directly to all your data sources, so instead of wrangling spreadsheets, you can just ask questions in plain English and get instant dashboards and reports.