How to use a Timeline | Calendar view

The Timeline | Calendar feature offers a quick, convenient way to view and update date-related information in your TrackVia application. From activities to tasks, projects, and beyond, Timeline and Calendar views help visualize and manage your data.

In this article, we’ll move step-by-step through the process of configuring and modifying
Timeline | Calendar views.

Before we get started, ensure that you have the following steps completed:

1. Locate a table in your application containing records that you would like to visualize in a
Timeline | Calendar.

2. Ensure that the table contains at least two Date, or Date/Time, fields. These should correspond to the “Start” and “End” dates of your activity, task, project, etc.

Navigation

To create a Timeline | Calendar view you can either create a new view or navigate to an existing custom grid view in your application and click the View Options button in the top right corner (highlighted in red box below), and then click on "Timeline | Calendar" in the drop down options. 

Note: You will not be able to convert a table's Default View into a Timeline | Calendar view.

Configuring Timeline | Calendar Views

Next, you see which filters were applied to your original grid view, quickly change the filter to another pre-existing filter, or navigate to create a New Filter if you would like to see a new subset of the information included in your original grid view.

We'll leave this option blank in this example in order to see all of the records on our table.

Now that you’ve selected exactly what data should be contained in your view, you can customize the Timeline | Calendar view itself.

There are currently three (3) View Types available for Timeline | Calendar views: Timeline, Calendar, and Grid. Here, all three options are selected and the Default View Type is set to Calendar: 

Select up to three (3) fields to display on your Timeline | Calendar records for easy visibility of record attributes without needing to click into individual records: 

Below is the final Calendar view with conditional formatting applied to visually color code various Project Statuses.

The conditional formatting rules were set up as shown below: 

And the calendar displays the Project records with the conditional formatting colors as shown below: 

Note: All of the settings we’re configuring can be changed after the view is Saved.

Select the desired relationship to group by. Timelines are grouped by relationship fields included in the view. In this example, the records are grouped by the related parent record on the "Customer" table:

For example, let’s say that you have Projects that you accidentally forgot to link to a Customer. When you select the [Customer] Default View you will be able to quickly see these Projects, grouped by the fact that they have no related Parent record (remember: in this example, you are grouping by the Project’s related Customer). Then you’ll be able to quickly drag and drop the Projects on your Timeline to dynamically associate them with the proper Customer.

Finally, click “Save Settings” to see your new view.

Timeline | Calendar Features

Every Timeline | Calendar view has a few new features included in the view header, which allow you to:

 

Toggle between Month, Week, and Day displays when on the Calendar view

 

Page between Months, Weeks, or Days, and quickly return to Today on your Calendar view.

 

Navigate between Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly displays on your Timeline view.

Note: Searching and Filtering also work on your Timeline | Calendars as on all other views.

Within Timeline | Calendar views themselves, you can easily drill into your data, adjust the Start & End dates associated with your records, or move an entire event. This will automatically change the related date fields on the record you are modifying.

As mentioned above, you can easily use the Timeline View to change the Parent record your current data is associated with. For example, here we can see that there is an activity, “Timeline | Calendar Training”, which is not associated with any location. You can easily drag the calendar card into a different row or timeslot to update the record:

FAQs

Q: How do I see exactly when an event Starts or Ends during my day?

A: Use Date/Time fields instead of basic Date fields as the Start & End Dates when configuring your Timeline | Calendar in order to see exactly when events are scheduled to Start or End.

Q: What happens if the End Date on one of my records is accidentally set to occur before the Start Date?

A: When viewing a record with an End Date occurring prior to the Start Date, where the Start and End Dates are simple Date fields, the event will not appear in the Timeline view.

Follow up: When viewing a record with an End Date occurring prior to a Start Date, where the Start and End Dates are Date/Time fields, the event will not appear in the Timeline view.

Q: Is there any restriction to the type of fields I can put on my Timeline | Calendar record labels?

A: No. Location fields will display the Location’s Latitude & Longitude coordinates. Image and Document fields will display the name of the attached image or document if one is present on the record.

Q: What happens if one of the Date fields I’m using on my view is accidentally deleted?

A: In this case, you’ll be prompted with an error message when attempting to load the view indicating that you need to reach out to one of your app admins.

Q: Can I put Timeline | Calendar views on my Dashboards?

A: Yes, like any other view, Timeline | Calendars make great additions to your Dashboards.

Related Articles: 
How to create views
How to interact with views
How to use conditional formatting