Every project manager knows the quiet weight of a plan that slips, a budget that stretches and a team that is counting on you.

ExactlyPM's Project Planner is a gift from Jay Thaker to all my fellow PMs, made with love in India, so that a good planning tool is never locked behind a sign-in or a price tag.

Use it, share it, make it yours. May your milestones land on time, and may every team you lead get home on time too.

— Jay Thaker

What makes it different

• 🔒 Your data stays with youProjects are saved as files on your own device. Your project is never uploaded to a server and never kept in the browser.
• 🚪 No sign-in, no registrationNo account, no email, no password. Open the page and start planning.
• 🎁 Free to useA gift, not a trial. If a small sponsor strip is shown at the bottom, you can collapse it for a while.
• ⚡ Nothing to installWorks smoothly on your laptop, tablet, or phone, even with a slow internet connection. No downloads or installation required. Just open and start planning.
• 🧭 A complete plannerWBS, FS / SS / FF / SF dependencies, Gantt chart, critical path, milestones, delay tracking, resources, shifts, costs and a live KPI strip.
• 📤 Take your work anywhereExport to Excel, CSV or PNG, and keep plain .json project files you can back up or share.

Good to know

• Because your projects are not stored in the browser, this guide opens on every visit (reopen it any time with ? Help) and unsaved work is lost when you close the page. Use Save often; the status beside the buttons tells you when there are unsaved changes.
• The footer shows how many people are live now (distinct IP addresses active in the last 45 seconds) and the lifetime visitors count (distinct IP addresses ever seen). Each IP address is stored only as a one-way hash, so it cannot be read back; your project content is never sent anywhere.

Get going in six steps

1. Look at the sample project that is open now: the task list (WBS) is on the left, the Gantt chart on the right and the KPIs along the top. Choose New (or Start a blank project below) for an empty project.
2. Add tasks with + Add. Fill in the name, start date, duration, progress and resources in Task Details (under the task list).
3. Structure them: indent a task (⇥) to make it a sub-task. The task above becomes a summary whose dates, duration and progress roll up automatically.
4. Link them: tick two or more tasks and press 🔗 Link, or type predecessors such as 2FS+1 in Task Details. Set a task's duration to 0 to make it a milestone.
5. Track progress: tick Completed on finished tasks or update Progress % and the actual dates. Delays, the critical path and the KPIs update by themselves.
6. Save your project as a file and use Export… for Excel, CSV or PNG.

The task list (WBS)

• WBS numbers (1, 1.1, 1.1.1 …) are generated automatically and renumber when you move tasks.
• The Completed column has a checkbox for every task: tick it to complete the task at 100% (its actual end defaults to today); untick it to go back to the previous progress. On a summary task it completes or reopens all its sub-tasks, and shows a dash when only some are done.
• Click a row to select it. Use the first-column checkboxes to select several tasks, or the header box to select all rows shown. Delete, Duplicate, ↑ ↓, ⇤ ⇥, Link and Unlink act on all ticked tasks (or on the highlighted one if none are ticked).
• + Add inserts a task below the selected one (after its sub-tasks) at the same level, or at the end if nothing is selected. Duplicate copies a task with its sub-tasks. Delete always asks for confirmation.
• ↑ / ↓ move a task (with its sub-tasks) among its siblings. ⇥ Indent makes it a child of the task above; ⇤ Outdent moves it back up a level.
• ⊞ / ⊟ expand or collapse every branch; the ▾ arrow toggles one branch.
• Filter with the search box, resource, status, Delayed and Critical. Matching tasks keep their parents visible.
• Right-click a row (long-press on most phones) for a quick menu.

Task Details

• Start / End date: the planned dates, which are also the baseline. End is calculated from Start + Duration, or edit End to change the duration.
• Duration can be in Days or Hours. Switching the unit converts the value, using the shift of the assigned resources (8 hours a day unless you change it). An hours task takes up whole days on the Gantt chart but is costed on its exact hours. Enter 0 for a milestone.
• Progress %, Actual start and Actual end record what really happened (see Dates & delay).
• Resource(s): open the dropdown and tick as many people as you need (add them first in Resources & calendar). Notes is free text.
• Summary tasks (those with sub-tasks) show rolled-up values; their dates, duration and progress are locked.
• Working days are Monday to Friday, minus the holidays you add in Resources & calendar.

Linking tasks

• Type predecessors in Task Details using WBS numbers, for example 2, 2FS+1, 3.1SS-2, 4FF. A plus is a delay (lag), a minus an overlap (lead), in days.
• FS Finish to Start (the default), SS Start to Start, FF Finish to Finish, SF Start to Finish.
• Dependency type and Lag days apply to all of the task's predecessors and rewrite the Predecessors box. If the links differ, they show Mixed.
• 🔗 Link: tick two or more tasks and they are chained in list order, Finish to Start with 0 lag.
• ✂ Unlink: tick two or more tasks to remove the links between them, or select a single task to remove all of its links (the ones it depends on and the ones that depend on it).
• Successors are shown (read-only) in the info panel under the form, and the Gantt chart draws an arrow for every link.
• The app rejects circular links, missing or duplicate predecessors, a task depending on itself, and links between a task and its own parent or child.
• When a predecessor moves, its successors are rescheduled automatically.

Critical path

Tick Show critical path above the Gantt chart to colour critical tasks (zero total float) dark red. Total and free float for each task are in its info panel.

Plan, actual and delay

• Start / End are the plan and the baseline, so they always match. Delay comes from actual dates, from unfinished tasks running past their end, and from predecessors that slip.
• Actual start overrides the planned start, and the task, its successors and the Gantt bar move with it.
• A task below 100% is still running, so it ends no earlier than today. Its Actual end shows today (greyed out) until the task is complete.
• At 100% (or when you tick Completed) the Actual end unlocks and defaults to today; set the real finish date. Lowering the progress clears it again.
• Delay = current end minus baseline end (calendar days, with a percentage of the baseline length). Early finishes show as negative.
• Status: Not Started, In Progress, Completed or Delayed (late and not yet complete).
• The info panel under Task Details shows the current start and finish, the baseline, the floats, the delay and the cost.

Milestones

• Set a task's duration to 0 (days or hours) and it becomes a milestone: it is drawn as a flag instead of a bar, marked ⚑ in the task list.
• A milestone sits on its predecessor's finish day and has no work or resources of its own. If it is not achieved by its date, it moves forward to today, like any unfinished task.
• It is achieved when its progress is 100%: tick Completed or enter 100. The flag turns green when achieved and red when late.
• Milestone cost = the baseline cost of the tasks listed between the previous milestone and this one (task-list order). Tasks listed after the last milestone are not attributed to any milestone. The cost shows beside the flag, in its tooltip and in Task Details.
• The Milestones achieved KPI shows achieved against total, with the baseline cost of the achieved ones against the total.
• Give a milestone a duration above 0 and it becomes an ordinary task again.

Reading the chart

• Grey bar under a task = baseline. Blue = current schedule, red = delayed, green = completed, dark bracket = summary task. The darker part inside a bar is progress, and the thin strip above it is planned progress.
• A flag marks a milestone (green when achieved, red when late), with its baseline cost beside it and a small grey diamond at its baseline date.
• Shaded columns are weekends and holidays. The orange line is today. Hover a bar for its details.
• Choose the scale (Day, Week, Month, Quarter, Year), then Zoom in / out, Fit project or Today to centre on the orange line.
• Scroll the chart sideways and down; headers stay in view and the task rows always line up with the bars.
• Drag the vertical divider to resize the two panels, and the bar above Task Details to resize the details area.

KPIs along the top

• Project tenure: project start to expected end, in days, months or years (you choose).
• Expected end date: the latest current finish of any task.
• Project delay: expected end minus the baseline end, in days, months or years (you choose).
• Variance: actual cost minus initial cost (amount and %), with the schedule variance in days and % underneath. Positive means over budget or late.
• Initial project cost uses the planned (baseline) hours; Actual project cost uses the current durations and also shows the spend to date.
• Milestones achieved: achieved against total milestones, with their baseline cost.
• Over-utilized resource (highlighted in red): anyone loaded above 100% on some working day. Under-utilized resource: average load below your threshold (80% by default, idle people included). Hover or tap the i icon on either card for utilization bars.
• All amounts use the project currency you chose in the top bar.

Resources & calendar

• Open Resources & calendar to add people with a role, cost rate per hour, allocation % (how much of their capacity each assignment uses) and shift time (hours per working day, 8 by default).
• Add holidays (typed or with 📅). They are skipped by the scheduling engine, like weekends.
• Set the under-utilized threshold. It is saved with the project.
• Cost of a task = hourly rate × work hours × allocation %, for each assigned resource. A task in days uses each person's own shift; a task in hours uses the hours you entered. Hours follow the real (current) duration, so overruns raise the actual cost, while the baseline cost stays at the plan.
• A ⚠ next to a task means one of its resources is over 100% on some day. A person's daily load is measured against their own shift.
• Pick the project currency in the top bar (INR by default). It is saved with the project.

Saving and opening

• Save writes to the same file again and again (Chrome and Edge). The first Save asks where. Save as… writes a new file. In other browsers Save downloads a fresh copy named after the project.
• Open loads a project file and links to it, so Save updates that file. New starts an empty project. Both ask before discarding unsaved changes.
• Project files are plain .json. They include your tasks, resources, holidays, currency and thresholds, and can be shared or backed up.
• Your project is not stored in the browser: if you close the page without saving, your work is gone. The page warns you first.

Export

• Use the Export… list: WBS as CSV, Excel or PNG; Gantt as Excel or PNG; or a combined Excel workbook or PNG image.
• The combined Excel workbook has four sheets: WBS, Gantt data, baseline and resource assignments.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Ins add task · Del delete · Ctrl+D duplicate · Ctrl+S save
• Alt+↑/↓ move task · Alt+←/→ outdent / indent · ↑/↓ select previous / next task

Phones and small screens

• The screen is split into tabs: Tasks, Gantt, Details, KPIs, plus Split (tasks and chart side by side) in landscape.
• Tap a task that is already selected to open its Details. Tap the i icons for utilization bars.
• Switch light / dark with Dark / light. Reopen this guide any time with ? Help.

The footer

• Bottom-left: live now (people using the app at this moment) and lifetime visitors (unique visitors since the counter started). They show dashes when the page is not opened from its hosted web address.
• If a sponsor strip is shown, it is open by default. The – button collapses it; it opens again by itself after 30 minutes, or sooner with ▴. It is hidden on phones held in landscape.