How an FMCG tool became the go-to for Level 0 project planning

The data said something I wasn't expecting

The Promo Gantt Chart was built for commercial and supply chain teams at FMCG companies. The starting point: S&OP requires transparent insight into how your promotions are phased - who is doing what, when, and how those activities relate to each other on the timeline. That insight is scattered across Excel files, TPM systems, and Teams chats. When a question comes up in the S&OP meeting, you spend 20 minutes cross-referencing before you can answer. That's a gap that shouldn't exist.

I built a Power BI custom visual that puts overlapping promotions, retailer conflicts, and ATL/BTL campaigns on a single timeline. Microsoft-certified, live on AppSource.

What I didn't expect: the download data started showing names with no FMCG background. PMO leads. Project managers at software companies. IT portfolio managers. They were downloading the Promo Gantt - not for promotions, but for project roadmaps and portfolio visualizations for steering committees.

Why does an FMCG tool work for project planning?

The mechanics behind promotional tracking and project planning are surprisingly similar. In FMCG you deal with overlapping promotional periods across multiple retailers, campaigns running above and below the line simultaneously, and the need to show this at a high level without losing the detail underneath.

In project management you deal with overlapping phases - Design, Build, Test, Deploy - shared resources spread across multiple workstreams, and a steering committee that wants a clean Level 0 overview without scrolling through every task.

The underlying pain point is identical in both cases: standard Power BI visuals become cluttered and unreadable the moment timelines overlap. You need something that automatically stacks, groups, and compresses to a high-level view - with the ability to drill into detail when someone asks the hard question in the room.

Why it works for project environments - and what's actually new

The Promo Gantt wasn't built for PMOs. But the mechanics that make it work for FMCG promo tracking turn out to be exactly what project planning needs. Two features in particular:

• Level 0 Collapsed Views — one clean line per project for the steering committee. Click any row to drill into the detailed workstreams underneath. Same data, two altitudes. No toggling between reports, no separate slides for the executive summary.
• Diagnostic by design — when two phases within the same project collide on the timeline, the visual automatically splits them onto a new row inside that project group. The result: a thicker row is a visual signal. You don't need to hunt for conflicts - they surface themselves. One look at the portfolio view tells you exactly where to investigate.

And unlike most custom visuals, there's no DAX gymnastics involved. Three dropdowns handle the configuration: group by, color by, and zoom level. That's it.

What was missing for serious PMO dashboard use was cross-filtering. Based on customer feedback I went back into the code to add it. The update just passed Microsoft AppSource's audit.

• Cross-filtering — click any project, phase, or legend item and your entire Power BI dashboard filters instantly. The Promo Gantt now behaves like a native visual: fully integrated with your slicers, KPI cards, charts, and tables. Click a workstream on the Gantt and every other visual on the page responds. Filter from an external slicer and the timeline updates in real time.

That single addition changes what's possible in a PMO reporting setup. The visual is no longer a standalone island you drop into a report - it's a fully interactive control layer for the entire dashboard.

What a Level 0 project view looks like in practice

Say you're running a program with four workstreams - Analysis, Design, Build, and Test - that partially run in parallel. You need to present this to a steering committee that doesn't have time for Gantt-level detail, but does need to see whether the program is on track and where the risks are.

With the Level 0 Collapsed View you show one bar per workstream: start date, end date, label. The committee sees at a glance whether phases overlap on schedule and whether anything looks delayed. One click unfolds the detail layer for whoever wants to go deeper.

With Vertical Stacking you can immediately see when two workstreams are competing for the same resource at the same time. The visual stacks them automatically, making the conflict visible without opening a separate resource planning file.

This is exactly what's been missing in standard Power BI Matrix and Gantt visuals: the combination of high-level and detail, in one visual, without configuration work between views.

What this means for Power BI in project environments

Most organizations build their project reporting in Power BI with a mix of Matrix visuals, table views, and the occasional Gantt tool pasted in as a screenshot. It works, but it's not an interactive experience. You can't filter, click through, or let the dashboard respond to selections from other visuals.

The Promo Gantt is a certified custom visual - meaning it integrates fully into your Power BI report. Cross-filtering works: click on a project phase and the entire dashboard adjusts. Share it as a normal PBIX file. Publish it to the Power BI Service. No external tools, no exports, no screenshots.

For FMCG teams, all the promotional tracking functionality remains fully intact. The update adds project management capabilities without removing anything that was already there.

Do you work with timelines in Power BI?

I'm curious what makes the standard visuals fall short for your use case - whether that's in an FMCG context or a project environment. Leave a comment below or reach out via LinkedIn. Every update to the Promo Gantt Chart comes from direct user feedback, and I want to keep it that way.