Is their a way to "lock" groups

longlive289s

I'm working on making a 18mo rolling calendar in the calendar app.

While we have some projects that don't have work slated until 2027/2028 and beyond, our stakeholders would still like to see the project in the calendar so we can at least ask any questions about it in our quarterly meetings.

Currently I have items grouped by the department and then the project category. Unfortunately, it appears groups will not show unless their start dates actually line up with the period that calendar covers.

IE: Calendar shows Q1 of '24 till Q2 of '25. However departments project X doesn't show on the calendar because it doesn't kick off till 2027. Is their a way to lock those secondary groupings so the project category heading heading still shows?

Bassam Khalil

Hi @longlive289s,

To address your specific issue—ensuring visibility of future projects within the current 18-month rolling calendar view—consider the following workaround strategies:

• For projects starting beyond your calendar's current view (e.g., 2027/2028 projects), create placeholder activities or milestones with start dates that fall within your calendar's current 18-month window.
• These placeholders can be named in a way that clearly indicates they are forward-looking or planning items for future projects. For example, you might name a placeholder "Early Planning for Project X (Starts 2027)".
• This method ensures that each project is represented in your calendar view, facilitating discussions during meetings.
• If your Smartsheet has a structure where each project is a parent row and the tasks or milestones are child rows, you could utilize the summary rows (parent rows) to represent your future projects.
• Make sure the start date of these summary rows falls within your 18-month calendar view, even if it's a symbolic date, to ensure visibility.

longlive289s

Unfortunately our stakeholders specifically do not want to see any kind of placeholder or milestone. All they would like to see is the sub category heading with no markers/milestones or gantt bubbles until an actual item is coming up in that 18 months