Timeline & Portfolio Visibility for Multi-Project Reporting

Question

Hi Everyone,

I’m exploring whether Smartsheet can support a portfolio-level timeline view for our leadership team. I’m aware of the Timeline feature, but I’m looking for something more flexible and consolidated.

Ideally, project managers would be able to select specific milestones or key tasks to surface on a shared timeline. A key requirement is that these milestones/tasks appear within the same timeline bar as the project itself—not as separate rows above or below—so the view remains compact and easy to scan across 50+ projects.

We’re aiming for a printable view that shows projects grouped by business unit, team, and project, with a rolling 90-day window.

The goal is to help leadership quickly identify:

* Potential conflicts (e.g., overlapping deployments or major events)
* Opportunities to adjust schedules

It would also be helpful to include:

* A clear, at-a-glance visual project health indicator (e.g., green check, yellow warning, red x issue, blue ice for on hold)
* A visual % complete indicator (such as a Harvey ball)

Has anyone implemented something similar, or found an effective workaround? I’d especially appreciate guidance on keeping key milestones embedded within the same timeline bar rather than expanding the view with additional rows.

Thanks in advance!

naguirre1224 · Answer

Something similar to this. Note that tasks and milestones are on the same row as the project. This would allow to visually see many more projects on a page vs. sub-lines for each task/milestone.

darkmatter · Answer

Seems like you'd need a combinatoin of tools to address these user requirements, all bundled into a dashboard:

* Timeline - to show rolling 90 day activity* filitered by milestones for example
* task bars can be conditionally coloured depending on project status

* Sheet summary report - to consolidate harvey balls and project health per project
* Cross-project milestones on one row - not an elegant solution I think of; you could try* Create a portfolio report, filtered by milestone, then convert to timeline (wont show in one row)
* Create a sheet summary report (you'd have to manually add each milestone into sheet summary)
* Use Copilot Connector / API tools to visualise in PowerBI / Microsoft 365 for example (not in Smartsheet)

Someone else may chime in with other ideas!

Good luck,

Matt

naguirre1224 · Answer

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the suggestion. I do have access to Portfolios and we’re currently using Control Center to manage multiple project portfolios today.

I may be missing something, but I’m not seeing how the Portfolios feature would address the specific reporting need I described. In particular, I’m looking for a consolidated, printable timeline view across 50+ projects that:

* Shows a rolling 90-day window
* Surfaces selected milestones or key tasks within the same timeline bar as each project (not as separate rows)
* Allows leadership to quickly identify overlaps or contention points
* Includes visual indicators like project health and % complete

From what I’ve seen so far, Portfolios seems more focused on organizing and summarizing projects rather than providing that level of timeline visualization.

If you’ve seen a way to configure Portfolios (or combine it with reports/dashboards) to achieve this kind of view, I’d really appreciate any additional detail.

Thanks again for pointing me in that direction!