Do more with timeline: display full bar titles, see collaborators & support for single-date sheets

elektra_h

Hi Community,

We are continuing on our journey to optimize timeline view and are back with a flurry of good news! You can now create timelines in sheets with just one date column, customize how bar titles are truncated to best suit your needs, and see who is collaborating with you on your sheet. These awesome features give you more flexibility and make visualizing your work even easier.

Create timelines in sheets with just one date column

Instantly track project milestones, lay out task due dates, plan key campaign events, and much more in timeline in sheets with only one date column. This new capability is available to anyone on business plans or above. To get started, simply head over to the view switcher in any sheet with one or more date columns and select Timeline.

Customize whether bar titles are fully visible or truncated
This new feature makes it easier to read the bar titles on timeline and allows you to tailor the vertical density of view to meet your needs. Using the new toolbar button you can:

• Choose to display the full title of bars (allowing text to extend past bars) to make it easier to find information and read timeline, without needing to hover over each item individually to see its full name.
• Choose to truncate titles so they fit within bars in order to produce a denser timeline that is easier to scan.

Users can set their individual bar title preference on timeline view in each sheet. And finally…

Say hello to smoother collaboration with the ability to see who’s working in the sheet

Intimeline view you can now see who else is viewing the same sheet in real-time, regardless of the view they're using. Other collaborators are displayed in the upper right corner next to the share button. You can hover over each user tile to get their details, including their name and contact information. This new feature enhances real-time collaboration making it easy for teams to identify and communicate with collaborators working on the same sheet.

For more pro tips and guidance on getting started with and using the timeline view, check out our help article here. Stay informed by subscribing to receive weekly product release updates featuring the latest enhancements for your chosen platform.

Thank you! 

Elektra Helde | Product Marketing | She/Her

***Note: Currently, there is no option to set a default preference for other users.

Marc Shecter

Thanks for the update @elektra_h! It's great to see this new functionality moving right along.

Is there a way to make the timeline show all people who are listed in the "Assigned To" contact column? I have 30 people assigned to various tasks in a project plan, but the timeline is only showing these three people who have been added to the column's Add Contacts section.

Thanks,

Marc

Kariv

@elektra_h I love having the ability to customize the bar column title length and show milestones in the timeline! Our company likes to see projects on a fiscal year versus calendar year. It would be nice if we had the option to set our fiscal year and have the option to display years in either CY or FY in the timeline view.

Zita

@Kariv — Thanks for trying out the new timeline view! We're aware of the request to make the top timescale on timeline view customizable to reflect the appropriate fiscal year. While we can’t yet provide a timeframe for release, we’re happy to share that this is in our future plans.

Karim Khan

The new overflow options work great for me. Though, I have some tasks formatted with white text that don't overflow well.

The labels in Gantt view don't have this problem:

By the way, I do really like that a parent row in Timeline keeps its taskbar color assigned by conditional formatting, as opposed to Gantt view where they can only be gray when dependencies are enabled.

Zita

@Marc Shecter — Timeline draws one lane for each contact defined in the contact column's properties in the Add Contact section. Be sure to add all contacts to the column definition if you'd like that contact to have a lane in timeline view. Feel free to share your feedback with our product team here.

Zita

@Karim Khan — Thanks for sharing this feedback! Our product team is aware of this issue and will be looking into it. In the meantime, it may help to change your timescale to make bars longer, or adjust your color/blue to use a lighter shade. (In timeline, dark bars automatically have white font, light bars automatically have black font).

Marc Shecter

Hi Folks — I posted a feature enhancement request for the Timeline view — Enable edit of End Date. Please check it out and vote it up if desired.

Regards,

Marc

Will Duplex

@Marc Shecter I like your enhancement request, great idea!

Alicia D

Can someone explain the Customize whether bar titles are fully visible or truncated option? When I got to the toolbar, it says this:

Lawrence P

Hi all,

I'm required to produce multiple project on a page reports for a number of key stakeholders - Timeline view is visually perfect for our needs.

I'd really like to be able to set bespoke colours for the groups (NOT the task itself, the header on the left, to reflect project RAG status, for example) and to be able to print this view to a PDF.

Are either of these possible at all please?

Thanks,

Lawrence