Timeline Templates

Timeline Templates are defined at the URL level and describe a reusable set of milestones that can be applied to Projects within the URL. Once a template is applied to a Project it becomes the Project's Timeline, and the Project team can track progress against the milestones it defines.

Users must have the URL-level Manage Timelines permission to create, edit or delete Timeline Templates.

Template properties

Each Timeline Template has:

  • Name and optional Description — identifying information shown when users apply the template to a Project.

  • A Drafts label — a Label that marks which Drafts within a Project count towards auto-derived milestone progress. Only Drafts carrying this Label are considered. The Drafts label is required whenever the template contains any auto-derived milestones (see below).

  • An ordered list of Milestones. Each milestone has a Name and an optional Target Days offset (days after the Project start date that the milestone is expected to be reached).

Milestones can be reordered by dragging the drag handle on the left of each row.

Milestone types

Milestones can be one of two types.

Manual milestones

Manual milestones are updated directly by the Project team. On the Project's Timeline tab users with the Project-level Manage Timelines permission can set the milestone's status (Not Started, In Progress, Complete) and record a target date and actual completion date.

Auto-derived milestones

Auto-derived milestones compute their status automatically from Labels applied to objects within the Project's tracked Drafts. Each auto-derived milestone has:

  • An Object type — the type of object whose Label will drive the milestone. This can be any object type that has at least one Label allowed on it for this URL (Forms, Fields, Matrices, Custom Objects, etc.). Built-in types are shown in the URL's configured display order, followed by user-managed Custom Objects.

  • A Completion Label — the Label that, when applied to objects of the chosen type, indicates the object has reached the milestone.

The milestone is considered Complete when every active object of the chosen type, across every Draft carrying the template's Drafts label, has the Completion Label. If some objects have the Label but not all, the milestone is In Progress; if none do, it is Not Started.

Note

The list of Labels in the Completion Label dropdown is filtered to only those allowed on the selected Object type for this URL. Changing the Object type refreshes the list.

Applying a Template to a Project

Timeline Templates are applied to Projects from the Project settings page. When a template is applied, the Project receives a copy of the milestones and a reference to the source template. Subsequent changes to the template's milestones do not propagate to existing Projects — the Project keeps the milestones it was given at application time.

Changing the template on an existing Project deletes the current milestones and replaces them with a fresh copy from the newly-selected template. Clearing the template removes the Project's timeline entirely.

See Project Timelines for details of how milestones appear and are edited on the Project side.