Timeline

Happy_Monday2025

I took the action plan attached my coworker gave me and worked on building a timeline chart. After a lot of research and testing, I learned that Smartsheet doesn’t currently support this kind of detailed Gantt-style visualization with actual dates on the X-axis, mainly due to limitations like too much data and lack of support for date formatting along that axis.

Because of that, I used AI to help create the timeline chart

Screenshot 2025-07-09 at 12.26.27 PM.png

you see above. To keep it clean and readable, I included only the high-level task numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.) and removed the sub-tasks (1a, 1b, 1c, etc.) for now. There was just too much information to show clearly otherwise.

That said, do you know a way to get this kind of timeline working in Smartsheet, I’d really love to learn.

Thanks so much

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Paul Newcome

You would use the Gantt view within a sheet. If there are too many tasks / sub-tasks, you can insert a helper column that can be hidden after setting up that flags the rows you want to see and then either create a sheet filter or a row report based on this column.

Happy_Monday2025

Thank you Paul, I did do a helper column for the dates but they just came out as numbers. I searched AI and it said the dates are not able to be on the chart. Is this true?

Paul Newcome

I use dates regularly. Are you able to provide screenshots of your Smartsheet?

Happy_Monday2025

Hi Paul, here is a screenshot. I never have trouble with charts except this one. I tried to do a helper column but the numbers come out on the x axis instead of dates. I don't know why 123 are there on the y axis

Paul Newcome

Why not just use a Gantt view?

Happy_Monday2025

These are the steps I did to get here since I am new to smartsheets.

Started a grid, put in data, switched to gantt view
created a report from the original
made a dashboard from the report

Is there an easier way?

Paul Newcome

You could just use a report widget to display the Gantt view directly from the report.

Happy_Monday2025

OK thank you

Paul Newcome

Happy to help. 👍️

Happy_Monday2025

Hi Paul I appreciate the help as I am still really new to Smartsheet, I was hoping for some more help. I tried to pull the metric sheet of start date to end date into the dashboard to make a timelime line. Here are the steps I tried.

I created a metric sheet with tasks

2. I created a dashboard clicked on chart, added data from metric timeline, clicked on the task name, start date and end date

3. but it will not creat the timeline, it is saying selected data cannot be charted. Please select a new range. I then tried with duration helper colun and it still went to this screen.

Happy_Monday2025

Hi Paul, please ignore previous post. Is this chart sufficient to a good timeline chart or is there a better way to do it?

Happy_Monday2025

Paul Newcome

@Happy_Monday2025 That is generally a pretty common way to display timelines, but really you are the only one that can answer that question. Does that work for you and/or your end users? Is there something missing that you would want added?

Happy_Monday2025

Hi Paul,

Yes, I’m trying to put the text on the left side box before the Jan 1 column. (so not directly next to the colored bars). I’d also like to remove the “Duration” column from view.

Would you be able to help me with the steps to do that in simple terms since I am new? I’ve searched YouTube and AI tools but haven’t been able to find a clear answer.

Thanks so much

Paul Newcome

In your report, you can decide what columns are shown and what columns are hidden. You do need some of those columns in the report to output the Gantt, but if you right click on the column header, you have the option to hide the column the same as you do when in a sheet.

Hide all of the columns except for the column that has the label and change the Gantt timeline settings to have no label in the Gantt chart itself.

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