Part 3 · Projects, time and knowledge

Timeline (Gantt)

Draw a project or service proposal timeline as bars, publish it to customers without an account, and exchange it as PDF, image or Microsoft Project.

Symbifox 18.0 (September 2026 catalogue) · Modules: Échéancier · Revised 2026-10-18

Watch it

The Timeline application draws over time what your projects already contain: one bar per task, one lane per stage or per person, a red line on today's date. It is for the people who coordinate an engagement and have to show where it stands, internally and to the customer. The concrete result is a timeline you can read at a glance, which prints, exports and shares through a private address. Nothing is entered twice: the dates come from the tasks, or from the lines of a timeline drawn separately.

Overview#

A timeline is a calendar reading of a body of work. Symbifox knows two kinds. The first is built on a project: each task becomes a bar, from its Planned start to its deadline. The second is a standalone timeline, where you enter lines by hand without creating any task. That serves to illustrate a service proposal or a rollout plan without cluttering your projects. Both kinds are drawn, exported and published the same way.

Three notions come up throughout. The lane is the horizontal grouping of bars: the project stage, the milestone, the assignee, the company, or nothing. The milestone is an event with no duration, marked by a diamond. Progress is the dark part of the bar, and each lane shows its count of completed lines and its percentage.

The main screen shows the chosen project's timeline, with its full toolbar.

On this screenshot, the Projects or Standalone toggle chooses the source, and the drop-down list chooses the project. The Group by list chooses the lane, while Day, Week and Month change the scale. The percentage sets the display size, and Export timeline produces the files. The lanes carry their count, here 0 of 3 and 0 of 4.

The application feeds on Project: the dates, the assignees, the stages and the milestones come from there. A line's planned hours travel in the exports, unrelated to the hours actually logged in Timesheets. Sharing with the customer goes through the portal described in Contacts.

Configuration#

Access and permissions#

Two levels exist, on the Timeline line of each person's user form, in Settings › Users & Companies › Users.

Settings#

The application has no configuration screen. Its two settings live on each project, in the Timeline tab of its form. Timeline grouping sets the lane used when the timeline opens, here and on the portal. Timeline published opens or closes the private address. The display size, for its part, is set on screen and is not remembered: it follows the screen, the image and the SVG, never the PDF, whose drawing is calibrated for print.

The colours, the logo and the tagline of the files produced are read from the company record. Nothing needs setting: see Settings and brand identity.

Base data#

Before drawing, gather the following:

• a project with dated tasks, or a standalone timeline with its lines;
• on the tasks, a Planned start wherever the real date matters, otherwise the timeline estimates it and says so;
• the project stages or the milestones, if you plan to group by one or the other;
• for a standalone timeline, the names of the lanes, in free text: a phase, a work package, a team.

Getting started#

This walkthrough opens the timeline of a Boréal project, corrects an estimated date, then produces a PDF in the company's colours.

1. Open Timeline. The timeline of the last project you viewed appears.
2. In the toolbar drop-down list, choose Boréal's internal project. Seven lines appear, grouped by project stage.
3. Find a bar whose left edge is dotted: its start date is estimated. Hover over it to read where the date comes from.
4. Open the matching task in Project › Tasks › All Tasks, enter the Planned start, then select Save.
5. Go back to Timeline and select the Reload from the server button in the toolbar. The dotted edge is gone and the bar starts on the right date.
6. In the Group by list, choose Assignee. The lanes become people.
7. Select Export timeline, then PDF.

Result: a vector PDF downloads, with Boréal's logo and colours, showing exactly the timeline you have on screen.

Common tasks#

Open a project's timeline#

A project's timeline can be viewed from the application, from the project, or from a task.

1. Open Timeline › Timeline.
2. Check that the toggle is set to Projects.
3. Choose the project in the drop-down list.
4. If needed, change the scale with Day, Week or Month.

Result: the bars redraw at the requested scale. From a project form, the Timeline shortcut button at the top of the form opens the same screen; from a task, the timeline opens on the task's project.

Give a task a start date#

Without a start date, the timeline assumes one. This field puts an end to the guesswork.

1. Go to Project › Tasks › All Tasks.
2. In the search bar, apply the No planned start filter.
3. Open a task.
4. Enter the Planned start.
5. Select Save.

Result: this task's bar loses its dotted edge. In developer mode, the task's Displayed start field now shows Planned start instead of an estimate.

Change how bars are grouped#

The same timeline reads differently depending on the lane chosen: by workflow, by person, by milestone.

1. Open Timeline › Timeline and choose the project.
2. Open the Group by list.
3. Choose Project stage, Milestone, Assignee, Company or None.

Result: the lanes re-form and each one recalculates its count and its percentage. To keep this choice as the opening grouping, including on the portal, carry it over to Timeline grouping, on the project's Timeline tab.

Export a timeline#

The five outputs are drawn from the same calculation as the screen, which guarantees a file identical to what you see.

1. Open the timeline you want.
2. Set the grouping and the scale.
3. Select Export timeline.
4. Choose the format: PDF, PNG, SVG, Excel or MS Project (.xml).

Result: the file downloads, with the company's logo and colours. The PDF and the SVG stay sharp at any size. The spreadsheet gives one line per task with its dates, its progress and its planned hours, and the Microsoft Project file reopens in Project or in OpenProject.

Publish a timeline to the customer#

Publishing opens a private read-only address that you give to people who have no account. Prerequisite: the Management and publishing level.

1. Go to Project › Projects and open the project form.
2. Open the Timeline tab.
3. Select Publish on the portal.
4. Select Show the full address and copy the address.
5. Send the address by email.

Result: the page opens for anyone who has the address, with the same timeline and the same files to download. A customer who already has a portal account needs nothing: a banner appears on their project page and a card in their customer portal.

Close or renew a published address#

Closing the page and changing its address are two separate actions, and that is deliberate.

1. Open the project form, Timeline tab, or the standalone timeline's form.
2. To close without changing the address, select Remove from the portal.
3. To cut off the links already handed out, select Regenerate the token.

Result: after Remove from the portal, the address refuses access to everyone, and you can reopen later with the same address. After Regenerate the token, the old address is worth nothing and a new one takes its place.

Create a standalone timeline#

A standalone timeline shows a timeline without creating tasks: in a quote, in an implementation plan, in front of a committee.

1. Go to Timeline › Standalone timelines.
2. Select New and enter the Name.
3. Choose the Client, the Responsible and, if needed, the Referenced project.
4. In the Lines tab, select Add a line, then enter the Lane, the Line, the Start and the End.
5. For an event with no duration, check Milestone: the end date is then ignored.
6. Repeat for each line, then select Save.
7. Select Open the timeline to see the drawing.

Result: the timeline appears in the list, with its number of lines and its status. No task is created, no project is touched, no hours are counted.

Here is the form of a Boréal standalone timeline, published to the portal.

Chain two lines of a standalone timeline#

A line that waits for another one gets an arrow on the drawing, without you having to draw it.

1. Open the standalone timeline, Lines tab.
2. Open the line that depends on another.
3. In Predecessors, choose the line or lines that come before it.
4. Select Save.

Result: on the drawing, an arrow links the end of the previous line to the start of the next one. The timeline reschedules nothing for all that: it reads the dates, it does not recalculate them.

Import an existing timeline#

A timeline already kept in Microsoft Project, in OpenProject or in a spreadsheet can be brought in without re-entry. Prerequisite: the Management and publishing level.

1. Go to Timeline › Import.
2. Select Upload your file and choose the file.
3. In Target timeline, choose an existing standalone timeline, or leave it empty to create one named after the file.
4. Select Read the file. A summary of what the file contains and the list of lines read appear.
5. Clear Keep on the lines to leave out.
6. Check Replace existing lines to start fresh, or leave it cleared to add to the lines already there.
7. Select Import.

Result: the lines you kept are written to the target timeline, with their lanes, their dates, their progress, their milestones and their links.

The dialog opens on the choice of file and states the two formats it can read.

The menus, one by one#

Timeline: grouping menu, visible only to people who have at least the Read-only level.

Timeline › Timeline: the timeline itself, on the project or standalone timeline chosen in the toolbar. This is the application's home screen, shown earlier. The toolbar carries the Projects or Standalone toggle, the selector, the Group by list, the three scales, the display size, the Reload from the server button and Export timeline. Under the title, a line announces the number of lines and the period covered.

Timeline › Standalone timelines: the list of timelines drawn outside projects, with the Name, Client, Responsible, Start, End, Lines, Portal and Status columns. Boréal has only one, a service proposal in three work packages for Papeterie Trois-Rivières, published to the portal. Useful filters: Mine, On the portal, In progress, Archived. Groupings by Client, Assignee and State.

Timeline › Import: the import dialog, described earlier. It opens directly in a window, with no list first, and is offered only at the Management and publishing level.

Project › Timeline: the same entry, placed in the Project application to keep it at hand while working on tasks.

Reference#

Fields of the standalone timeline form#

Fields of a timeline line#

Fields of the Import a timeline dialog#

Fields added to the task and the project#

Reports and exports#

• PDF: vector drawing calibrated for print, with the company's logo and colours.
• PNG: an image, for a slide or a meeting report.
• SVG: sharp at any size, with the logo embedded if the logo is itself in SVG format.
• Excel: one line per task, with dates, progress and planned hours; it can be re-imported as is.
• MS Project (.xml): readable by Project and by OpenProject, and re-importable here.

Each output downloads, or is filed as an attachment on the project or on the timeline. The same files are offered to the customer on the published page.

The drawing is written in its reader's language: the screen, the PDF, the image and the SVG take their texts and their month and day names from it. On the published page, a downloaded file follows the website's language. The Excel workbook keeps its French column headings for now, whatever the language.

Automations#

The timeline runs no background job and sends no email. Two things still happen on their own: a missing start date is filled in with the best available estimate, always flagged by a dotted edge, and the chaining arrows are drawn from the declared dependencies.

Public pages and portal#

• The published page shows the timeline read-only, with download buttons for the PDF, the image, the SVG, the spreadsheet and the Microsoft Project file.
• A customer who has a portal account sees, on their project page, a banner with a View the timeline button, and a Timelines card in their customer portal.
• Three locks guard the page: the private address, the Published on the portal box, and the same check on the files as on the page.

Modules that extend this application#

Understanding#

One calculation, six displays. The screen, the PDF, the image, the SVG, the spreadsheet and the Microsoft Project file all come out of the same geometry calculation, done on the server. The browser repositions nothing on its side: it asks for the coordinates and draws them. That is what guarantees the printout looks like the screen, down to the line. The price of this choice is a round trip to the server when you change scale.

An assumed date is never hidden. Odoo Community gives tasks no start date. Rather than invent one silently, the timeline takes the best source available and announces it: dotted edge on the bar, origin named in the tooltip, Displayed start field on the task in developer mode. The added field carries the same name as its equivalent in Odoo's Enterprise edition, so that a migration loses nothing.

The timeline reads, it does not write. No bar moves with the mouse. Dates are changed on the task, or on the line of the standalone timeline. This choice prevents an unlucky drag from rewriting deadlines that other screens, other reports and other people rely on.

Publishing is a decision, not a side effect. The private address exists from creation, but it gives nothing while the publication box is cleared. The refusal does not come from the interface, which could be worked around: it comes from the data rules. And the files are guarded like the page, otherwise guessing the address of the PDF would be enough to get around everything.

What the timeline does not do. No critical path, no automatic scheduling, no resource levelling. These features are costly to get right, and few twenty-person organizations ask for them. Microsoft Project's binary format is not read either: only a library written in Java can do it, and Project knows how to export the format that is read here anyway.

Troubleshooting#

See also#

• Project: the tasks, stages, milestones and dates that the timeline draws.
• Timesheets: the hours actually spent, next to the planned hours.
• Contacts: the portal accounts of customers who consult a published timeline.
• My desk, Dashboard and Progress: the progress path, offered as a grouping.
• Settings and brand identity: the logo and colours reused by the exported files.