You can activate time horizons to automatically adjust the size of each item card to fit your timeline roadmap's chosen unit of time. For example, if your timeline is set to display months, each item will take up at least one full month on the roadmap.
This allows you to build high-level timeline roadmaps for stakeholders who value readability over granularity.
In this article:
Activating time horizons
Time horizons can only be used with timeline boards.
Time horizons are purely visual. They won't affect the timeframes you've assigned to your items. In fact, when time horizons are on, you lose the ability to drag and drop items around to change their timeframes.
To activate time horizons:
- On any timeline board, click Card customization.
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Under Timeframe visualization, click Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly horizons.
Note: Your time horizons will match the granularity of the board. To change the scope of your time horizons, you need to change the granularity of the timeline.
- (Optional) Click Save at the top right corner of the board if you want other people to see your changes.
Visualizing duration vs end dates
There are two main modes for time horizons.
- Duration (default): Cards adjust to span every unit of time they touch. If you have an item with a timeframe from September 12 to October 20, and you activate monthly horizons, the item will resize to take up all of September and all of October.
- End date: Cards adjust to span only the latest unit of time they touch. An item with a timeframe from September 12 to October 20 will shift to take up all of October while leaving September entirely empty.
End date is most useful when your roadmap audience only cares about the end date of an item rather than its entire working time. (For example, sales teams often just need to know when they can sell the thing.)
To switch from duration to end date:
- On any timeline board, click Card customization.
- Under Item visualization, click the item type you wish to change.
- Select End date.
Working with multiple item types
There is also a third mode for time horizons called Flat list. When an item type is set to Flat list, all items of that type are locked to the time horizons of their parents (effectively hiding the child items' timeframes altogether).
You will only see flat lists when working with at least two item types on the same board. (See Timeline boards: Flexible time-based roadmaps for information about adding item types to a timeline.)
Here's some key information about working with multiple item types as it relates to time horizon modes:
- The top-level item type can never be a flat list. You can select either Duration or End date.
- If the top-level item type is set to End date, all subordinate item types can only be set to Flat list.
- If the top-level item type is set to Duration, the second-level item type can be set to Duration, End date, or Flat list.
- From the third level on down, Flat list is the only option.
- Edge case: If you have a third-level item that is subordinate to a first-level item (for example, if your displayed hierarchy is Objective > Initiative > Feature and you have a feature that is subordinate directly to an objective, bypassing any initiatives), then that third-level item will use the second-level item type's visualization mode.