At the beginning of project planning, it's a good idea to gather project team members together to brainstorm and agree on major tasks and milestones. The perfect tool for capturing and communicating project milestones is a Visio timeline — a horizontal line that represents the life of a project. By adding markers to the timeline, you can indicate project phases and milestones.

This article describes how to:

• Lay the foundation
• Add milestones, intervals, and markers
• Refine a timeline
• Convert a timeline to a Gantt chart

Click to enlarge

Not only is a timeline easy to create and revise, but by simply adding a color scheme or decorative background you can create a clear, compact, and powerful snapshot of your project. For suggestions on improving the way your timeline looks, see Prepare Visio 2002 schedule diagrams for presentation.

Lay the foundation

When creating a timeline, first choose a horizontal bar to represent the time span of the project. The bar you choose serves as the foundation upon which you add the project milestones and events. It also establishes the style and tone of the timeline.

Even when they present the same data, timelines that are created using different bar shapes create different impressions. Shown above are the Divided bar and the 1-D bar.

To create the foundation of a timeline

1. In Visio, on the File menu, point to New, point to Project Schedule, and then click Timeline.
2. From the Timeline Shapes stencil, drag one of the six timeline shapes (Block, 1-D, Ruler, Divided, Cylindrical, or Chiseled) onto the drawing page.

3. The Configure Timeline dialog box opens automatically.

4. In the Start date box, type or select the starting date for the project.

   Tip   Click or use the arrow keys to move from date to month to year.

5. In the Finish date box, type or select the ending date for the project.
6. In the Time scale list, choose a timescale unit for the timeline.

7. If you choose Weeks, you can choose to begin the weeks on Monday or Sunday.

8. Leave the Show start and finish dates on timeline check box selected if you want the begin and end dates that you chose in Step 3 to be visible at the ends of the timeline.
9. In the first Date format list, choose how you want the dates to look.
10. Leave the Show interim time scale markings on timeline check box selected if you want each timescale unit (the unit that you specified in Step 5 above) to appear on the timeline.

11. A maximum of 60 timescale markings can appear on any timeline bar.

12. In the second Date format list, choose how you want the unit labels to look.
13. Leave the Automatically update dates when markers are moved check box selected.

    This means that when you reposition any milestones, intervals, or other markers on your timeline, the dates associated with the markers will update automatically.

14. Click OK.

Note   If you later decide to change any of these settings, you can open the Configure Timeline dialog box again by right-clicking the timeline bar and clicking Configure Timeline.

Add milestones, intervals, and markers

After you have the timeline foundation in place, you can start adding the vital content: markers that indicate important milestones and events. The following table describes the marker options available to you on the Timeline Shapes stencil.

Marker type	Shapes	Use to
Milestone		Indicate a specific milestone date on the timeline (for example, the date when product plans are due in manufacturing).
Interval		Indicate a critical time span on the timeline (for example, the time required to complete a manufacturing process). Choose an interval shape that matches the style of the timeline bar.
Elapsed-time indicators		Reflect the amount of time that has passed since the project began. An elapsed-time indicator shifts automatically as the date changes to reveal, at a glance, the status of your schedule in relation to your next deadline.

To indicate a milestone on a timeline

1. Drag a milestone shape from the Timeline Shapes stencil and drop it directly on top of the timeline bar.
2. In the Milestone date box, type or select the date for the milestone.
3. In the Date format list, choose how you want the date to look.
4. Click OK.
5. To add your own milestone description, double-click the text associated with the milestone. Select the words "Milestone Description," and then type the new text.

Note   When adding your own milestone description, make sure you select only the words "Milestone Description" and not the date associated with the milestone. If you inadvertently delete the date, right-click the milestone, and then click Show Date.

If a milestone date changes, you can quickly update the timeline by dragging a milestone marker to its new position.

To indicate a time span on a timeline

1. Drag an interval shape from the Timeline Shapes stencil and drop it directly on top of the timeline bar.
2. In the Start date and Finish date boxes, type or select start and end dates of the time span that the interval represents.
3. In the Date format list, choose how you want the dates to look.
4. Click OK.
5. To add your own time span description, double-click the text associated with the interval shape. Select the words "Interval Description," and then type the text with which you want to replace them.

Note   When adding your own interval description, make sure you select only the words "Interval Description" and not the dates associated with the interval. If you inadvertently delete the dates, right-click the interval, and then click Show Dates.

If a time span changes, you can quickly update the timeline by dragging an interval marker to its new position.

To indicate elapsed time on a timeline

1. Drag the Elapsed time shape from the Timeline Shapes stencil and drop it directly on top of the timeline bar. The shape automatically aligns its left end with the beginning of the timeline and extends to the current date.
2. Drag the Today marker shape from the Timeline Shapes stencil onto the timeline bar.

3. The shape is automatically positioned at the current date (at the end of the Elapsed time shape that you added earlier).

Each time you open a timeline diagram with elapsed-time markers on it, the markers automatically shift to align with the current date.

Refine a timeline

Inevitably, milestone dates, predictions about how long a process will take, and even project end dates, shift. You can easily revise and refine a Visio timeline in response to changes such as these. The following table shows how you can modify a timeline after all its pieces are in place.

Convert a timeline to a Gantt chart

After you've plotted the major tasks and milestones on a timeline diagram, you can then convert the timeline to a Gantt chart to communicate more detailed task and schedule information for your project.

Convert a timeline to a Gantt chart

1. Open the timeline drawing that you want to convert to a Gantt chart, and then click the timeline bar to select it.

   Note   You can convert only one timeline at a time. If you have more than one timeline drawing on the page, select one at a time and convert it.

2. On the Tools menu, point to Macros, point to Project Schedule, and then click Export Project Data Wizard.
3. On the first wizard page, under Export my project data into the following format, click Microsoft Visio Gantt Chart drawing, and then click Next.
4. Select the units of time and the duration options that you want for your Gantt chart, and then click Next.

   Tip   Click Advanced to open a dialog box in which you can specify formatting options for the task bars, milestones, and summary bars in your Gantt chart.

5. Select the task types that you want to include in your Gantt chart. Click a task type to view a description of it below the list.
6. Click Next, and then click Finish.

7. The Gantt Chart template opens with your new Gantt chart drawing. For more information about adding data to or refining your Gantt chart, see Add data to a Gantt chart.