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JJ JJ is offline
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Default How to plot Date Ranges on Same Graph

I'm trying to take our personnel spreadsheet and chart employee arrival and
departure data so that we can graphically see where the gaps are and whether
or not we need to fill certain positions earlier than expected. When a date
changes, the chart needs to automatically re-draw to correct itself. I
thought, "oh, this will be easy- I'll simply chart the date ranges with
everyone on their own line," and told my boss it would take 5 minutes. Well,
that was a week ago! He's getting antsy, and I'm getting embarrassed.

So basically, if person X is here from May through July, I want to have
months along the x axis and a bar for Person X stretching from May through
July. Then, for the replacement, Person Y, another bar would show that Person
Y gets here in July and continues through December. The best option would be
to have these two overlapping (on the same line) as shown in the first
graphic below, but even if I can just show Person Y on a line beneath Person
X, that will be wonderful.

I don't know if my verbiage explains it well, so I've posted graphics, based
on "dummy" data, showing what I want to do:

Option #1 (preferred) showing overlaps if they exist:
http://www.janinewiggins.com/images/...do_overlap.jpg

Option #2 showing the date ranges one beneath the other
http://www.janinewiggins.com/images/...ne_by_line.jpg

attached a spreadsheet with fake data as well as two graphics showing what
I'm trying to do with the data. If it were only 5 employees, I could hand jam
it at the end of every day, but we're talking about 75 people spread out over
12 departments and the dates will change every day for the next couple of
weeks as we negotiate the transition.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.
JJ