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    Customizing records in the Timeline view
    • 23 Aug 2023
    • 4 Minutes to read
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    Customizing records in the Timeline view

    • Updated on 23 Aug 2023
    • 4 Minutes to read
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    Article Summary

    This article will dive into how to get your records looking just right in your Timeline view. Please see this support article if you are looking for more general information about the timeline view. As with any view, there are several ways that you can customize records and their appearance within the Timeline view. You can group your records into swimlanes, configure each record’s labels, filter or sort through your records, and change each record’s height, color, and label layout.


    Introduction

    Plan availabilityAll paid plans
    Permissions
    • Owners/Creators - Can create, delete, modify, lock/unlock, and print views
    • Editors - Can create, delete, modify, and print views
    • Commentors - Can create, delete, and modify their own personal views
    Platform(s)Web/Browser, Mac app, and Windows app

    Grouping records into swimlanes

    One of the most exciting features of the Timeline view is the ability to group records into visually distinctive and collapsible swimlanes. Let’s take a quick moment to talk terminology:

    1. Grouping: Like other views, the Timeline view allows you to group your records according to a field you select from your table.
    2. Swimlanes: In the Timeline view, when you add a grouping, your records are organized by that grouping and displayed visually on a horizontally-scrolling timeline called a “swimlane.”

    swimlane_vs_grouping

    Note
    Adding a new grouping to a Timeline view will add new swimlanes to your timeline based on the field you are grouping by.

    Nesting swimlanes

    You can add up to three levels of grouping for each Timeline view, allowing you to nest swimlanes within each other to gain additional insight into the records in your timeline.

    • To add a new nested level of grouping, open the grouping menu and click on the Add subgroup option.
    • We encourage you to play around with different levels of swimlane nesting on your timeline — displaying your data in different ways can give you new insights.
    • You can rearrange the order of record groupings to affect how swimlanes are nested on your timeline. You can click on the pull handle for a group and drag and drop it to a different position in the grouping menu, changing the swimlane order as shown below:
      drag_and_drop_swimlanes

    Showing groups with no records

    Not every swimlane will have records that match that grouping’s current criteria. 

    • For example, if you are grouping by priority and have no low priority projects, a swimlane would be empty.
    • By default, added groups on the Timeline view will exclude empty swimlanes. However, you can toggle empty swimlanes on and off by clicking on the icon resembling a closed eye next to the pull handle for that grouping.
      show_groups_with_no_records_spotlight

    Customizing labels

    Clicking on the Customize labels button will open up a menu allowing you to choose which fields you want to see on each record in the timeline, and how that field’s text will appear as a label.

    • In this menu, you can toggle each field’s visibility as a label for your timeline’s records. You can also drag and drop fields to reorder how those labels are displayed in your Timeline view.
    • You can draw attention to a particular field by emphasizing how it’s labeled on your record by bolding, italicizing, or underlining that label’s text.
    • The primary field of your record will always be the first label for each of your timeline records.

    styling_label_buttons

    You can click each of the buttons next to a field’s name to either bold, italicize, or underline that field’s value.

    map_label_styles

    Changing the height, width, and layout of your records

    Clicking the Appearance option will reveal additional options:

    • Record height - As with any other view the options are short, medium, tall, and extra tall. The short height setting will not allow you to configure the
    • Record width - Options are Precise (default) or Expanded. When the expanded setting is chosen dragging records in the timeline view to reorder dates will not be supported.
    • Stack labels vertically - When toggled off (default), included field info will show up horizontally. When toggled on, included field info will stack vertically. Experiment when you are setting up the view to see what works best for your needs.
    • Wrap labels - Turning on this option will automatically format field information to fit better within the given space of the timeline view records.

    Filtering records

    Filtering records enables you to only show some of the records in the table within your Timeline view. To filter records, click on the filter icon just above the timeline.

    Changing record colors

    You can customize the color of the records in your Timeline view by using the "Record color" settings. There are two options to choose from:

    1. By condition - will allow you to set conditions, and if records meet those conditions, those colors will be applied.
    2. By select field - will apply colors to your records based on the token colors used in the single select field of your choosing.

    record_coloring_swimlanes

    Sorting records

    • In each swimlane, older records in the timeline will always stack on top of newer records.
    • However, if two records have the same start date, you can choose to sort which record will display on top of the other by adding a sort.
    • You can remove an active sort by clicking on the “x” next to that sort to remove it.
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