Every project has a Timeline tab, between Milestones and Documents. It draws the project's milestones as bars on a calendar, with each milestone's tasks underneath, so you can see at a glance what is on time, what is late and — with Forecast — where the dates are heading.
What the bars mean
- Dashed grey bar — the plan. It ends on the milestone's target date. It starts where the milestones before it are due; the first one starts on the day the project was created. Milestones that share a step in the sequence run side by side.
- Solid bar — what really happened, from the day the milestone started to the day it finished, or to today while it is still open. Green is done, your theme's accent colour is in progress and on time, red is still open after its target date, grey is cancelled. The legend above the chart names each colour.
- Diamond — the target date. On a task, a smaller diamond marks its due date.
- Tasks sit under their milestone with their own solid bar, from when the person started to when they finished. A task has a due date but no planned start, so it never gets a dashed bar.
- Orange line — today.
Hover over a row to see its dates. Click a milestone's number to open the milestone. Click a task to see its progress — the same summary the Milestones tab shows. A task you are not allowed to open shows here exactly as it does there: a draft that is not published yet keeps its title hidden.
Days, Weeks or Months
The tab chooses the scale for you from how long the project runs: up to about six weeks opens on Days, up to about seven months on Weeks, and anything longer on Months. Click another one to change it.
On Days every column is one day, with its weekday letter under the date, and weekends are shaded. It is the view to use for jobs made of one-day tasks.
Show tasks hides or shows every task row at once; the arrow beside a milestone folds just that milestone's tasks.
Forecast: where the dates are heading
Tick Forecast and the tab re-plans every milestone that is still open, from what has actually happened so far. Nothing is saved — untick it and the plan is exactly as it was.
The rule behind it is simple: each milestone keeps its planned length, and moves with the milestones before it.
- A milestone that has finished ends where it really finished.
- A milestone that is running ends at its real start plus its planned length — but never before today. One that is overrunning keeps pushing everything after it, a day at a time.
- A milestone that has not started starts when the milestones before it are forecast to finish — but never before today.
So a late finish pushes the rest of the project later, and an early finish pulls it in. What you see on the chart:
- a chip beside each milestone: +3d in red means three days after its target date, −2d in green means two days early, and on plan means on its date;
- a striped purple bar under each open milestone with its forecast dates, and an outlined diamond on its forecast due date;
- a line above the chart with the forecast finish for the whole project, and how far that is from the plan.
Tasks do not move in the forecast: they keep their own due dates. If a forecast pushes a milestone past the due dates of its tasks, those are the tasks to talk to their owners about.
The forecast assumes each milestone starts as soon as the ones before it are done — which is what happens when the project's Edit details has Start each milestone automatically when the ones before it are done switched on. If your milestones are started by hand, the forecast is the best case: it is only true if someone presses Start on time.
Making the forecast the plan
The forecast never changes a date for you. If you agree with it, open each milestone, click Edit and move its target date; the dashed bars then move to match and the chips go back to on plan. Who may edit a project is covered in Who can see a project, and who can change it.
On a phone
The chart scrolls sideways inside its own box, and the milestone names stay pinned on the left while you scroll.
The short version
- Dashed = the plan, solid = what really happened, diamond = target or due date, orange line = today.
- Days, Weeks or Months — the tab picks one for you; Days shades the weekends.
- Forecast: every open milestone keeps its planned length and moves with the ones before it; nothing starts or ends before today; nothing is saved.
- To accept a forecast, change the milestones' target dates yourself.
Deciding what should be a milestone and what should be a task is covered in Milestones or tasks? Planning a project.