Timelines in Google Sheets offer a simple yet effective way to organise date-related data visually. They are perfect for event planning, task management, and other projects involving actions over time. This quick guide will walk you through creating and customising timelines to fit your needs.
Creating a timeline
Let’s look at creating a timeline for a project. Start by preparing your data in a table, including details like actions, responsible persons, start and finish dates, and statuses.
To create a timeline:
1. Select your data range, including headers.
2. Go to the Insert menu and select Timeline.
3. Confirm or edit the data range, then click OK.
A new sheet will generate, displaying your timeline.
It’s that quick and easy! From here, you can adjust settings to customise the appearance and information displayed.
Timeline settings
The right-side settings panel lets you refine your timeline.
• Select data range: Adjust the source data if needed.
• Start and end dates: Define columns for start and finish or duration. You can also show single-date actions.
• Card title: Choose the title for each timeline card, such as the action name.
Optional fields
Optional settings include:
• Card colour: Assign colours based on data columns, such as action status or responsible person.
• Card details: Add more details to cards by selecting additional columns.
• Card group: Group cards by specific columns, like the person responsible, for better clarity. For example, below the actions have been grouped by the responsible person:
Timeline view options
The toolbar above the timeline offers further adjustments:
Going from left-to-right:
• Go to today: Click on this to move to today in the window.
• Time window: Change the period displayed.
• View mode: Choose between “Comfortable” (separate lines for card details) or “Condensed” (single lines).
• Card content display: Decide whether to clip text to fit within cards or allow overflow.
• Zoom: Adjust the zoom level to show more or less data.
Timelines in Google Sheets are an intuitive way to organise and display date-based actions. While currently limited to paid Workspace accounts, they are a robust tool for enhancing productivity and clarity in your projects.
Check out my video which takes a deeper look at Timelines.
Learn more about Google Sheets in these tutorials here.
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