> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://learn.nextedy.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Product Overview

> Nextedy GANTT is a project scheduling product for Siemens Polarion ALM.

export const LastReviewed = ({date}) => {
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## What Gantt Does

At its core, Gantt turns Polarion work items into a visual timeline. You see your tasks as bars on a chart, connected by dependency links, grouped by hierarchy, and colored by status. Drag a task to reschedule it. Resize it to change the duration. The Gantt handles the rest — recalculating dependent dates, respecting working calendars, and persisting changes back to Polarion.

This is not a standalone tool. Gantt operates entirely within Polarion. Your data stays in Polarion work items and plans. The Gantt reads from and writes to the same fields your team already uses. There is no separate database, no data synchronization, and no import/export step.

## Key Capabilities

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## Who Uses Gantt

Gantt serves different roles in different ways:

* **Project managers** use it for timeline planning, milestone tracking, and schedule comparison. They create baselines, monitor the critical path, and adjust schedules through drag-and-drop.
* **Team leads** use the resource view to balance workload across team members, identify overallocation, and plan capacity across sprints and iterations.
* **Engineers and contributors** use it to see where their tasks fit in the broader timeline, understand dependencies, and update progress directly on the chart.
* **Administrators** configure the Gantt for their organization — setting up working calendars, defining field mappings, establishing default behaviors, and writing scripts for custom logic.

## A General-Purpose Scheduling Tool

Gantt is not locked to a specific methodology. It works equally well for:

* **Waterfall projects** where tasks follow a strict sequence with clear phase gates
* **Agile projects** where iterations and sprints need timeline visibility alongside the backlog
* **Hybrid approaches** combining fixed milestones with iterative development
* **SAFe and scaled agile** where release trains, program increments, and cross-team coordination require a shared timeline view

The two built-in modes — **Work Items Gantt** for task-level scheduling and **Plans Gantt** for release and iteration planning — cover both detailed task management and high-level portfolio views.

## Highly Configurable

Almost every aspect of Gantt can be tailored to your organization's needs:

* **Field mapping** — The Gantt reads from whichever Polarion fields you designate for start date, end date, duration, progress, and resource. You are not limited to predefined fields.
* **Presentation modes** — Each work item type can appear as a task bar, a summary (project) bar, a milestone diamond, or a group header.
* **Color logic** — Task colors can be driven by progress status (dynamic mode), by scripts (static mode), or by any combination of work item properties.
* **Scripting API** — Four scripting hooks extend the Gantt: the **Item Script** (server-side JavaScript, per task) customizes appearance and computed values; the **Gantt Config Script** (client-side JavaScript) sets global chart behavior; the **Markers Script** (server-side JavaScript) adds timeline markers; and the **Page Script** (server-side Velocity) provides dynamic configuration with full Polarion API access.
* **Working calendars** — Define global holidays, per-user schedules, calendar exceptions, and team capacity multipliers.
* **Layered configuration** — System-wide defaults can be overridden per-instance, allowing administrators to establish conventions while giving teams flexibility.

For a detailed explanation of the configuration system, see [Configuration Layers and Precedence](/gantt/concepts/configuration-hierarchy).

## How It Connects to Polarion

Gantt does not have its own data store. It reads directly from Polarion work items and plans, and writes changes back to the same fields. This means:

* **No data synchronization** — What you see in the Gantt is exactly what Polarion stores. There is no lag, no import step, no risk of data divergence.
* **Full traceability** — Every change the Gantt makes to a work item is a standard Polarion field update, tracked in the work item's history.
* **Permission-aware** — The Gantt respects Polarion's permission model. Users can only edit what Polarion allows them to edit.
* **Embedded experience** — The Gantt appears directly in Polarion pages (LiveDocs, Wiki pages), alongside other Polarion content. Teams do not need to switch to a separate application.

## Next Steps

* **[Work Items Gantt vs Plans Gantt](/gantt/concepts/work-items-vs-plans-gantt)** — Understand the two scheduling modes and choose the right one for your project.
* **[Auto-Scheduling and Dependency Propagation](/gantt/concepts/auto-scheduling)** — Learn how dependency links drive automatic date recalculation.
* **[Architecture and Data Flow](/gantt/concepts/architecture)** — Explore the technical architecture: how data flows between Polarion and the Gantt chart.

<LastReviewed date="2026-06-24" />