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Project 2010 includes a Timeline View that provides high-level graphical overview of your project schedule. Timeline view provides you with a high-level, “big picture” overview of the entire project. You can build the timeline view as a single graphical bar or as a detailed stack-bar by including milestones, key deliverables or phases etc. Timeline view can be enhance by using the color palette and text effects help you make project schedule in such a format so you can use it for presentation or status report.
Tip: Use the Timeline view to show key dates or milestones, phases, deliverable tasks or any important tasks for more effective communication to key stakeholders. You can also use the timeline view for presentations or in project status report to indicate the overall status of the project.
The Timeline View is displayed by default on top of standard schedule views (Gantt chart, Task Tracking etc.)
If you do not see Gantt chart with Timeline View when you open a project, on Gantt chart view, click the View tab and select Timeline option.
Steps to create the Timeline view:
- Open the project schedule in Project Professional 2010 and apply Gantt chart view
- Make sure “Timeline” option is selected under View tab
- To add any tasks to the Timeline View, right click on name of the task in Gantt chart and click the “Add to Timeline”
- To add multiple tasks to the Timeline view, select all the tasks to be added to timeline view and right click anywhere in selected block of tasks, and then click the “Add to Timeline”
The Timeline view will be displayed as below.
The gray Timeline bar represents the entire duration of the project, with Start Date of the project on the left end of the bar and Finish date on the right end of the bar. The Current date display as Today formatted with colored text dotted line in the Timeline bar. The Timeline bar divided into one-month segments.
Place your mouse over any task to see “Percent Complete, Duration, Start, and Finish values.
Using pan and zoom options (Zoom in; Zoom Out) you can examine your schedule in different time views – for example, by quarter, month, or week. Using Entire Project option, display the entire project span in timeline.
The tasks in the Timeline can be displayed as “Bar task” or “Callout task”. Bar Task is the task displaying on Timeline view bar; Task name and details will be displayed outside of bar as text is called Callout task.
In this example, suppose you want to display Build Phase as Callout task, right click and choose the Callout display option.
Build Phase task will be displayed as below:
To change the Callout task to bar task, right click on text of the “Build Phase” and choose Bar Task.
Once you add the required tasks to Timeline view, you can rearrange the tasks position is the view by using the following drag and drop techniques as you needed.
To remove a task or a callout from the Timeline view, right click the task on the Timeline view bar and then select the “Remove from Timeline” item.
Formatting the Timeline View:
Timeline view can be enhance by using the color palette and text effects help you make project schedule in such a format so you can use it for presentation or status report. Use the “Format” tab to enhance the look and feel of Timeline view.
- Click the milestone/task you want to format
- In the Font selection, select an appropriate color and font size
- Use the “Text Styles” to format the Task Name, Milestone Name, Callout Task Name, Callout Task Date, Today Label etc.
Presentation of Timeline view:
Once you build the Timeline view of the project schedule, you can share it by using Microsoft Office applications (MS Outlook Email, MS Power Point, and MS Word etc.)
Select Format tab -> Copy group -> Copy Timeline -> from the drop-down list, select “For E-Mail”, “For Presentation” and “Full Size”
On required software application (MS Outlook, PowerPoint, MS Word), paste from the clipboard.
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