10 Free Project Schedule Templates in Nifty, Excel, and Others

Busy, busy, busy! That is exactly how any project manager would describe his or her workday. But while project managers have to juggle multiple tasks and manage complex projects, it doesn’t always have to be so tiring. Using any of the widely used Project Schedule Templates, you can easily get a high-level understanding of your entire project, helping you mitigate any challenges, such as an impending deadline or a dependent task that may derail your upcoming schedule.

To help you visualize your project timeline easily, a project schedule template is your answer. It’s a roadmap that outlines tasks, deadlines, and dependencies, keeping your project on track.

Here are ten brilliant project schedule templates that we have curated across multiple tools, including Nifty, Excel, and others, each offering a customized project schedule template to fit your specific needs.

What is a Project Schedule Template?

A project management template is a pre-designed framework that outlines the tasks, deadlines, and dependencies involved in a project. It’s essentially a blueprint for your project timeline.

Using this project management template, you can provide a high-level overview of your entire project timeline and help your teams understand their specific actions and crucial deadlines, ensuring that everyone is on the same page. The key components of this project schedule template include:

• Project overview: Details about the project like the project name, client information, start and end dates, and the crucial requirements.
• Tasks: All the activities that you need to complete to deliver the project, ideally broken down into small manageable chunks so that each step is covered in the project plan.
• Timelines: For each task and activity, you need to provide the timeline and due dates.
• Milestones: Significant checkpoints or key achievements that can help you understand project progress.
• Dependencies: Mention the key stakeholders, departments, and dependencies for each activity to help you ensure that every team member gets the support as and when required.
• Resource allocation: Some templates also include resource planning, which helps you allocate people, equipment, materials, tools, budget, or any other crucial resource for the project’s completion. This also includes planning and allocating resources from multiple departments to ensure that project timelines are met.

What Makes a Good Project Schedule Template?

If you are looking for project management schedule templates, there will be tons of options that you will find on the internet. Since each template is geared toward a specific audience and user group, there is no one-size-fits-all project schedule template that we can recommend. However, the best choice depends on a few specific factors, such as:

Your Unique Project Needs

The first step is to understand the requirements of your project, which include:

• Complexity: Understanding how complex your projects can be depends on factors like dependent tasks, the number of stakeholders or diverse teams involved, resource requirements, and other factors. Depending on the answer, you will need to choose a template that is apt for your needs. For example, if you are also required to track time for each activity and provide a report for billable hours to the client, a simple project schedule template may not be the right option for you. You will instead have to choose an option that captures this crucial metric while helping you schedule and manage your project activities. Additionally, consider how the project budget will impact your choice, as it is essential for estimating expenses, tracking project progress, and managing resources.
• Team Size: A simple template may suffice for a smaller team, while larger teams will require templates with more robust collaboration and communication features.
• Management Style: Do you prefer a waterfall approach or an agile methodology? Depending on your requirements, make sure the project template fits into your project management approach.

Clarity & Visual Appeal

A good project schedule template should be easy to understand and visually engaging. So, make sure your project template supports intuitive design, ensuring that users can quickly grasp the information presented. 

Meanwhile a clear visual hierarchy also helps prioritize important elements like milestones and deadlines. Pick an option that helps you efficiently track both activities and goals.

Flexibility and Adaptability

A versatile template can accommodate a wide range of project types. It should be scalable to handle both small and large projects without compromising usability.

Customizable

Make sure the project template can be customized to your unique requirements, enabling you to add, remove, or modify tasks and phases as needed.

Advanced Features

In addition to these basic project management requirements, make sure you pick a template that can support advanced features like:

• Task Management: Robust capabilities for defining tasks, dependencies, assignees, and due dates
• Timeline Visualization: Multiple timeline views (Gantt chart, timeline, calendar) to suit different preferences and project types
• Resource Allocation: Effective tools for assigning and tracking resources (human, equipment, budget)
• Progress Tracking: Clear indicators of task completion and overall project progress
• Collaboration Tools: Features for team communication, comments, and task updates
• Risk Management: Options to identify and assess potential risks and develop mitigation plans

By carefully considering these factors, you can select a project schedule template that empowers your team to plan, execute, and track projects efficiently. Additionally, using project management software can enhance these capabilities with features like project scheduling, real-time updates, and integration with third-party software.

Top 10 Free Project Schedule Templates in Nifty, Excel, and Others

1. Nifty Project Scheduling Template

Want to structure your project timelines and get a clear overview of all the activities and goals that you need to complete?

Nifty’s Project Scheduling Template provides a foundational structure for outlining project tasks, dependencies, and timelines. It offers a visual overview of the project, helping teams understand the project’s scope and sequence.

👉 Get this Nifty Project Scheduling Template

The best part about the template is the added features like:

• Visual clarity: The Gantt chart view offers a clear picture of the project’s timeline, helping to identify potential bottlenecks and dependencies
• Flexibility: Customize the template to fit your project’s specific needs by adding or removing columns and adjusting task details
• Ease of use: The intuitive interface makes it easy to create and manage tasks, set deadlines, and assign responsibilities
• Integration with Nifty features: Seamlessly collaborate with your team, track progress, and manage tasks within the Nifty platform

Thus, it is ideal for teams looking for a simple yet effective way to plan and visualize their projects.

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2. Nifty Project Management Schedule Template

The Nifty Project Management Schedule Template is the ideal option for project managers who want to have end-to-end control over their project activities, views, and customizations.

It provides a comprehensive framework for managing complex projects with multiple phases and deliverables. This allows you to gain a deeper level of project planning and control over all your activities and even views.

👉 Get the Nifty Project Management Schedule Template

The template can help you with:

• Structured approach: The template helps break down projects into manageable components, making it easier to assign tasks and track progress
• Resource management: Effectively allocate resources across different project phases
• Milestone tracking: Identify and monitor key project milestones to ensure timely delivery
• Dependency management: Visualize task dependencies to prevent delays and optimize workflow

Thus, the template is perfect for teams and project managers working on larger projects that require detailed planning and coordination.

3. Nifty Project Work Plan Template

If you prefer to visualize your project using a task-oriented approach, the Nifty Project Work Plan Template is the ideal option. It provides a clear and focused approach to defining, assigning, and tracking tasks.

The template comes with features that will help you with:

• Task list: Create and manage project tasks
• Task assignments: Assign tasks to team members
• Due dates: Set deadlines for task completion
• Basic progress tracking: Monitor task status

This template is not just for smaller projects or specific project phases but also for those that require a clear focus on task execution. It’s a tool that empowers you to take control of your project, no matter the size or complexity.

Get this Nifty Project Project Work Plan Template with Task View

4. ClickUp Project Work Plan Template

ClickUp’s Project Work Plan template offers a structured approach to project planning and execution. It provides a framework for breaking down complex projects into manageable tasks, assigning responsibilities, and tracking progress.

This template is particularly useful for projects requiring detailed task management and tracking. The ability to customize fields allows users to tailor the template to specific project needs. For instance, in a software development project, custom fields can be used to track coding progress, testing status, and deployment milestones. This allows you to:

• Create, assign, and prioritize tasks within the project
• Add specific fields like duration, phase, effort, and progress to track relevant project data
• Define relationships between tasks to visualize project flow
• Break down complex tasks into smaller, manageable subtasks

Thus, it is ideal for managing projects with complex dependencies and multiple parallel activities. The template also makes it easy to get a clear visual representation of the project timeline, helping you allocate resources and manage project timelines efficiently.

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5. Nifty Development Schedule Template

Nifty’s Development Schedule Template is specifically tailored to streamline software development projects. It provides a structured framework that aligns with the software development lifecycle (SDLC). This helps you to:

• Align your project with SDLC standards and development phases
• Easily break down development tasks into manageable sub-tasks
• Clearly define task dependencies to prevent delays and optimize workflow
• Set key project milestones and monitor progress toward project goals
• Seamlessly integrate with code repositories, testing tools, and other development platforms

Thus, if you are managing a project for development teams or app building/coding requirements, this template is the go-to option for you. It can help you improve project efficiency, reduce risks, and ensure timely delivery.

Providing a clear roadmap for the development process also helps development teams stay focused and aligned on their activities, helping you deliver the project on time and with high efficiency.

💥 Get the Nifty Development Schedule Template

6. Nifty Gantt Chart Template

Get this simple Gantt chart template

Nifty’s Gantt chart view streamlines project management by offering a comprehensive planning tool in a single interface.  This intuitive template visually lays out your project roadmap, including tasks, dependencies, and timelines.

Leverage existing tasks within Nifty effortlessly, as they automatically convert into the Gantt chart, saving you setup time. Moreover, you can plan resource allocation effectively to keep your project on track and within budget. With Nifty, managing milestones, dependencies, and tasks becomes a breeze.

The template’s greatest feature is that you can customize it to meet your specific needs. To provide a clear visual aid for each task, you could, for instance, color-code the task status. Simply by looking at its color, you can determine whether a task is progressing according to plan, is about to go off course, or is running behind schedule.

This template is perfect for both novice and experienced project managers who wish to set up a Kanban view for managing their projects. Nifty has many use cases because of its six-plus project views, which include Swimlane, Calendar, Kanban, List View, Timeline, Report, and more.

7. Project Schedule Templates in Excel

If you are looking for a complete Excel project management template, the Excel Project Schedule Template with the Gantt Chart is worth considering. It has all the fields you will need to manage your project deliverables, including a timeline tracker to monitor your project progress at a glance.

The best part is the ability to customize and update the fields for each column, ensuring that you can incorporate them for your unique needs. When you download the template, you will get a blank version to create on your own, or use the example (similar to the one shown in the picture) you can then build upon. This makes it ideal for project managers who do not want to build a project from the ground up and instead use a pre-existing template they can edit and add upon.

The template can be used for both simple projects with limited resources and complex projects involving several teams. It also comes with a bar chart to help you gather the overall progress from individual tasks, phases, or departments and showcase it in visual formats to present to your team, the client or even for adding status reports.

8. Project Schedule Templates by Notion 

The project schedule template by Notion offers great flexibility for both complex and simple project requirements. With a clean and intuitive interface for creating and managing project timelines, you can easily add tasks and activities while getting multiple views, such as a Gantt-style timeline, calendar, or simple Task view. 

What makes it special is the ability to create, assign, and prioritize tasks within your schedule and the ease with which you can make changes or updates to each activity. You can even add dependencies between tasks and visualize them in the project schedule template, allowing for improved planning and team collaboration. 

The ability to customize the template to match specific project needs, combined with the platform’s overall versatility, makes it a popular choice for many teams.

9. Excel Project Schedule Templates by Vertex42 

If you want a project timeline template that provides a visual understanding of all the project phases marked in a timeline format, the Excel Project Schedule Template by Vertex42 is a great option. This free Excel template is great for creating and sharing progress reports with stakeholders and especially for understanding the activities in each phase of the project.

The template also includes a blank weekly and monthly project schedule worksheet and a sample schedule worksheet to help you understand how to customize it for your project. While this is ideal for simple projects with limited team members, you may need a more flexible template for projects with dependencies and multiple stakeholders.

10. Project Schedule templates by Canva

Lastly, we have the project schedule planner template in Canva. The templates offer a wide range of visually appealing features, which you can use to add your tasks and create a visual roadmap for your entire project.

Users can select from a range of pre-designed templates and customize colors, fonts, and images to match their brand or project theme. The drag-and-drop interface facilitates the easy arrangement of project elements, and collaboration features allow for team input. 

However, Canva’s focus on aesthetics might limit its functionality for complex project planning, making it more suitable for creating high-level project summaries or visually appealing presentations.

Create Customized Project Schedule Templates in Nifty

Choosing the most optimal project schedule template is crucial for streamlined project delivery and overall execution. The ideal template will help you not just get an overview of all your deliverables and milestones, it will help shed light on aspects that need your specialized attention, especially activities that can derail project outcomes. By noticing these ahead of time and using your expertise as a project manager to allocate the right resources or make updates to your overall deliverables, you can ensure that they do not end up becoming costly mistakes that cost you your project.

Understanding the project planning process is essential for creating a comprehensive project management plan, including steps such as noting the project scope, identifying milestones and tasks, estimating costs, allocating resources, and documenting the plan for approval.

With Nifty Orbit AI, you can gain a significant advantage to help you create your project scheduling templates. With a powerful prompt-based template creator, you can create tailored templates and gain intelligent insights to streamline the planning process. Thus, you can create free project schedule templates that factor in:

• Project size and complexity: Determine the level of detail and features required
• Team preferences: Consider the team’s familiarity with different tools and platforms
• Collaboration needs: Evaluate the template’s ability to support teamwork and communication
• Customization options: Assess the template’s flexibility to adapt to specific project requirements

Remember, effective project management goes beyond template selection. Clear communication, collaboration, and regular updates are essential for project success. So, try out Nifty’s AI and project management capabilities to help you create and optimize a project schedule template that best supports your team’s success. Sign up today.