Change Gantt bar colours

One bar, made recognisable

A busy schedule can carry a dozen stages across a dozen projects, each with a default colour derived from its task. When one stage matters more than the rest, the client's priority milestone, the stage your team keeps asking about in standup, giving its bar a colour of its own is the fastest way to make it findable without changing anything about the plan underneath. This is a display choice on the task itself, not a project-wide setting, so it travels with the stage wherever it appears on the schedule.

The colour lives on the Display tab, per task

Every task, a stage or a smaller item beneath it, carries its own Gantt bar colour on its Display tab. Pick a swatch there and only that bar changes; nothing else on the schedule moves or recolours. Because the setting sits on the task itself, it stays attached to that stage across every view of the schedule, whether you're looking at the whole firm or the project alone.

Recolour Concept Design on Riverside Apartments

Riverside Apartments' Concept Design still has its default colour on the schedule. Enter Edit mode, open the stage, and switch its bar to something that stands out.

1. 1

   Click Edit to unlock changes, including which colour each Gantt bar shows.

2. 2

   Select Concept Design to open its settings in the panel.

3. 3

   Open the Display tab, where the Gantt bar colour setting lives.

1. 1

   Pick one of the swatches under Gantt bar colour. Concept Design's bar updates on the schedule right away.

   
2. 2

   Click Save to keep this colour with the schedule version.

The bar updates the instant you pick a swatch, behind the panel, before you've saved anything. That immediate feedback is deliberate: you're choosing a colour by how it actually looks next to the surrounding bars, not from a static preview.

Save makes it part of the version

The colour only sticks around after you click Save. Saving carries the new colour with the same schedule version everything else on that Gantt belongs to, so it survives a reload and shows up for anyone else looking at the same version.

1. 1

   Concept Design now stands out on the Gantt in its new colour, clearly distinct from the other stages.

   

Troubleshooting

• The colour picker is on Display, not the main task fields. If you don't see swatches on the panel that first opens, you're still on the task's default tab; open Display to find Gantt bar colour.
• Picking a colour that matches the current one does nothing visible. Choose one of the other swatches if the bar doesn't appear to change.

Where this fits next

Now that Concept Design stands out, keep the schedule readable as it grows: use schedule views and filters to focus on what matters.