[From Wrike] Custom Timelines for Project-Level Date Visualizations
Hi Community,
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Iโm Sam, a member of the Solutions Architecture team at Wrike Professional Services! ๐๐ป I look forward to contributing to the Community with posts catering to those looking for more advanced and novel ways to get the most out of Wrike Analyze. I'll begin with a frequently requested style element - Custom Timelines!
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You might find this piece helpful if:
- You use start and due dates to manage high-level timelines for your projects
- You would like a visual representation of those dates at the project level
- You would like to challenge yourself with a more advanced use case
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Custom Timelines: Background
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Have you ever tried using a date field for the X Axis on your Analyze Widget? That's the standard method for creating a timeline. This one shows the number of projects started in a given month.
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Sometimes, though, you're looking for a view that's more granular. What if I wanted to see a timeline for each project? What if I wanted to understand when the project is ACTIVE, that is, taking into account both the start and due dates?
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Custom Timelines are your answer! A Custom Timeline is a visualization that you build yourself using a coordinated set of formulas. Let's build one together!
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Note that there are two kinds of Custom Timelines -- FIXED timelines and ROLLING timelines. FIXED timelines are a bit easier so I will cover them in this demo.
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Custom Timelines: Steps to Build
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- I'm going to start with a standard Pivot and add Project Link, Project Name and Project Start and Due dates in Day grouping.
Next, we'll add our Custom Timeline, which will graphically show when each project is active. Our goal is to have the months when the project is active show in blue, and the months the project is not active show in gray.
We'll begin with the start of our timeline, which will be January of the current year (or whichever month is the start of your fiscal year).
- Add a new value, Count of Project ID. Then edit the formula.
- Now's where the fun begins. Surround the entire expression in ( ), then add two more dimensions/fields with commas as shown in the screenshot. This is called a formula filter, we're filtering to show only those projects active in January.
Hint: Always select the dimension from the data browser rather than typing directly in the formula.
- To set the formula filter:
- Right click on Project Start Date, select Filter, then choose the following filter: Calendar - Earliest Date to end of January. Rename field to read "Project Start Date is on or before Jan (year)"
- Right click on Project Due Date, select Filter, then choose the following filter: Calendar - start of January to Latest Date. Rename field to read "Project Due Date is on or after Jan (year)"
- Finally, as a required step, add an unfiltered COUNT([Project ID]) - 1 + to the top line of the formula. This prevents the formula filter from filtering the rest of the widget.
- Now save the formula (blue button on the BOTTOM), and you should see 1s on projects that are active in January, and 0s on projects that aren't. Rename your formula and set your conditional formatting and your first timeline point is done!
- To make your next timeline points, simply duplicate your first point and change the formula filters.
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Custom Timelines: Finished Example
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Below is a screenshot of my completed Custom Timeline. You see that the timeline graph visually corresponds to the Project Start and End dates, showing the months that each project is active in blue. This is especially useful for roadmap graphs and project progress reports.
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Looking for even more challenges with this technique? Try combining with a task progress % or an on-time completion metric for even greater granularity and visibility!
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Best wishes growing with Wrike Analyze!
Sam Alter Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Aprenda sobre as funcionalidades e melhores prรกticas em Wrike com o nosso Treinamento Webinar Online
Sam Alter Wrike Team member Aprenda sobre as funcionalidades e melhores prรกticas em Wrike com o nosso Treinamento Webinar Online
Unfortunately I can't use this feature in our Business Account. But I'd love to get this filter flexibility also in standard task and project widgets!
I'm with Florian Kislich. We have the Enterprise Account but not the additional Analyze feature. I would love seeing some of these features come into the standard accounts.
Ditto with Floran. This is awesome but I can't use it with our business account.
Hi everyone, thank you so much for taking the time to share your feedback, we definitely hear you. I'll share your feedback with the relevant teams ๐๐ปโโ๏ธ
Same here, great feature but we don't have it in our account. It would be great to get some of them included in the regular account to show the benefits before we can get the add-on.
Thanks for your feedback Roxane Carrier ๐ค
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Love this! We've been looking for something just like this, so thank you!ย
I wanted to add totals as well so we could see per month, but for some reason they don't match up. I wonder if you'd be able to help with this? Sam Alter
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