Timeline
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- Viewing your Project on a Timeline
- Setting Colors on your Timeline
- Dependencies on your Timeline
- Sections on your Timeline
Timeline is a beautiful, living view of how your work fits together that helps you start projects on the right foot, and hit your deadlines. With Timeline, you can create a project plan that shows how all of the pieces of your project fit together, share plans to get buy in and give everyone confidence that your team will deliver on time, and adapt your plan as problems arise and work inevitably changes to keep your project on track.
Viewing your project on a Timeline
You can view any project that you have in Asana in Timeline view.
To access your project’s Timeline, click on the Timeline tab in your project view.
Subtasks do not automatically inherit the project or assignee from their parent tasks. You need to manually add a subtask to a project and add a due date/date range in order for it to appear in the project’s Timeline
- Any task in your project that has a due date or date range added will automatically show up on your Timeline.
- Unscheduled tasks in your project that don’t have due dates will appear at the bottom of your Timeline in the Unscheduled Tasks section.
- Hide Unscheduled Tasks by clicking the drop down arrow icon on the right of this section.
Scheduling tasks on your Timeline
To move tasks from Unscheduled Tasks and onto your Timeline, you can drag the task from the unscheduled bucket onto the correct dates on your Timeline, or click back into your list or board view and add a due date or date range to that task. Once the task has a due date, it will appear on your Timeline.
Add a due date range to the task:
Click the due date picker in your task and select Add start date at the bottom. First choose the day your task should start, then a due date.
This date or date range will appear on your Timeline.
Create a new task on your Timeline
To create a new task from your Timeline, you can click directly on your Timeline on the date that you’d like to schedule the task and type in the name of your task. You can then click into the task’s details to add additional information and assign to the appropriate person, and the task will appear directly on your Timeline as well as in your list or board view.
Setting colors on your Timeline
The best way to set colors on Timeline is to create custom fields and set colors for each field. Then, when you set a custom field value on tasks, that color can be viewed on your Timeline.
To set colors on your Timeline, click on the Timeline menu icon in the top right corner of your Timeline, then click on the “color” drop down to choose your color preferences.
You can choose “Asana Default”, which pulls from other colors you have set in Asana, or you can set your color logic based on custom fields. Once you’ve chosen which custom field you’d like to use, you can save that view for everyone, so your entire team will see the same color logic when they view the project in Timeline.
Dependencies on your Timeline
You can set dependencies directly on your Timeline by clicking the connector icon that appears when hovering over a task and then dragging to another task.
To draw dependencies on your Timeline:
- Click on the connector icon when hovering over a task.
- Drag the connector over to the task you wish to mark as Dependent On.
If the tasks in your project are dependent on others, they will show as connected on your Timeline.
If there are no date conflicts, a task will be connected to the task it’s dependent on via a grey line on your Timeline.
If dependent tasks overlap on your Timeline, for example if one task has a start date that starts before a task it is dependent on is completed, a red dependency line will show up on your Timeline to indicate that there is a potential conflict.
Zooming on your Timeline
To zoom in or out, click on the + or - buttons in the top right corner of your Timeline.
Depending on the size of the monitor you are using, the maximum amount you will be able to zoom in on your Timeline is two to four weeks, and the maximum amount you will be able to zoom out on your Timeline is six to nine months. The larger your monitor, the more you will be able to zoom in and out.
Sharing your Timeline
Anyone with access to your project will have access to the project’s Timeline. If you’d like to share a Timeline with someone in your company, you can send them the link to your project’s Timeline if the project is public by copying the URL. Alternatively, add them as a follower to tasks in your project if the project is private.
Sections and sort on your Timeline
Sections add a new level of categorization to your project plan. You can now view your work your way, share a plan with more visual indicators of task types, and adapt your plan while knowing how tasks are grouped. We’ve added the ability to view your Timeline sections or sort by date.
To add, remove or reorder Sections in the Timeline, you need to do so from the project list view. Once you’ve made changes, your Timeline view will automatically update.
To add, remove, or reorder Sections in the Timeline, you need to do so from the project list or board view. Once you’ve made changes, your Timeline view will automatically update.
You can also sort your tasks on Timeline by either start date or due date or Assignee and then save that as your default view.
To sort your tasks on Timeline:
- Click the Sort by icon
- Select either Start Date or Due Date or Assignee
To save your layout click on the drop-down arrow next to the project header and click Save layout as default.
Once you sort your tasks on Timeline by start date or due date or assignee, the project Sections will disappear. To navigate back to your sections, sort by None.
If you spent time manually setting up your Timeline and need more time to adjust your project plan with the addition of Sections, you have the option to revert to no sections until October 24th, 2018. Select the Timeline menu icon in the top right corner of your Timeline, then click on the “Revert to no sections”.
Have feedback on Sections? Let us know.
