Add a timeline view in airfocus

Timeline view basics

Timeline views offer a high-level overview of your roadmap, showing how items sit across weeks, months, or quarters. For product managers, this view is essential for communicating the "when" of a strategy to stakeholders and ensuring that the team is aligned on upcoming goals and achievements.

By enriching your timeline with milestones, you can highlight critical time markers and critical deadlines. In airfocus, items on the timeline are sorted by group, allowing you to categorize your roadmap into logical containers for better clarity.

Add a timeline view

To add a timeline view to your workspace:

1. Navigate to the workspace where you want to add a view.
2. Click All views from the navigation at the top of the workspace under the workspace title.
   
3. Click the plus sign icon in the top-right corner of the panel that appears.
4. Select Timeline from the list of view types.
5. Click Continue.
6. Add a name for the view.
7. Under “Timing field”, select the field you want to display.
8. Optionally, enter a description and customize the view’s filter, grouping, sorting, and display options.
9. Determine the view’s visibility.
10. Click Add view.

Configure dates and items

Manage the timing of your items directly within the timeline:

• Set date ranges: Click and drag an item on the timeline to adjust its date or date range.
• Modify timing: Drag from the right or left edge of an item to adjust the start or end date only.
• Add a milestone: Create a milestone field by clicking + Add milestone in the top-right corner to attach significant events to items in your workspace. Milestones display as a vertical line in the view.
• Unplanned items: Items without an assigned date or date range appear on the right side of the timeline under “Unplanned items”. Drag the items onto the timeline to assign a date.

Add items to a group

You can organize your timeline by grouping items into various categories. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Select Group from the top-right corner of the timeline.
2. Click + Add grouping to create a new group.
3. Select an option from the list that appears.

Items will re-organize on the timeline according to the group you selected. You can add multiple groups for further organization.

Create item links

You have the following abilities when visualizing relationships and blockers:

• Item links appear as dotted lines connecting date ranges.
  • Click a line, then select the trash can icon to remove the link.
• Click and drag a node to another item to create a link.

Adjust display options

Customize how you visualize your timeline by following these steps:

1. Select Display from the top-right corner of the workspace.
2. Adjust the following options as needed:
   • Color by: Select how item color is determined.
   • Zoom: Adjust the timeline scale to days, weeks, months, quarters, or years.
   • Arrange by: Determine whether you want each item to have its own row (Waterfall arrangement) or if you want items to be condensed on the timeline (Dense arrangement).
   • Item link handling: Determine whether you want airfocus to automatically adjust the timing for linked items to avoid conflicts.
   • View options: Toggle whether you want to see various options on the timeline such as dependency lines (item links), milestones, shading over past dates (fade past), tooltips, and child items.
   • Item card details: Determine which fields are visible on the view.

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