How to plan with the Timeline (Gantt chart) in Skybase

Give jobs dates

A job with a start and a due date is a bar between them, and a job with only a due date is a one-day bar. Jobs with no dates wait in the Unscheduled tray: drag one onto the timeline to give it dates.

You can also set Start on the job page, in the table or when you create a job.

Zoom: Day, Week, Month, Quarter or Year. Today scrolls back to today.
Group: Group the rows by Column, Status, Assignee, Priority or Client team. Each group shows as a phase, from its earliest start to its latest due date.

Move a job, and see what follows

Step 1: Drag a bar to move the job, or drag either end to change its start or due date. Dates land on working days.
Step 2: While you drag, the jobs that wait on it show as ghosts where they would land.
Step 3: Let go, and only the jobs that would now start too soon move, later and keeping their length. It all happens as one change.

Hold Alt (⌥ on a Mac) as you let go to move just the job you dragged, or press Esc to cancel the drag. If a job you can't change would have to move, Skybase asks first: Move only this job, or cancel.

Tip: Only looking? Turn on Lock dates and a stray drag can't move anything.

Link jobs that wait on each other

Step 1: Hover over a bar and drag from the dot at its end onto another bar. The second job now waits on the first.
Step 2: Press Space on a job, or click it, to see what it Waits on and what waits on it.
Step 3: Give a link a lag in working days, up to 60, or remove it with the ×.

A link that would make a loop is refused. Links in the toolbar shows All of them, or only the Selected job's.

A milestone is a key date drawn as a diamond on its day. Turn on Milestone for a job in the same place you see its links, or on the job page.

Undo, and see what moved

Undo puts back everything one change moved, and it still works after a refresh. Every view counts: a due date changed on the calendar, in the table or on the job page moves the jobs that wait on it too, with an Undo on the note that tells you.

Under What moved it, each job lists its moves in the last 30 days and who made them, such as "Moved by Maya because Design moved", with Revert on each. If someone has changed one of the jobs since, you can Undo the rest.

Baselines and the critical path

Step 1: Choose Save baseline… to keep today's plan. A project keeps up to 5.
Step 2: Pick one under Compare to. Each job shows its planned bar beneath it, and how many working days late or early it now ends.
Step 3: Turn on Critical path to outline the jobs that can't slip without moving the project's end. The rest say how many days of slack they have.

Administrators and team members can save baselines. Guests can't.

Workload

Turn on Workload for a strip under the timeline with how many jobs each person has on, day by day. Switch it to All projects to count everyone's jobs in every project you can see.

The workload is for your team. Guests don't see it.

What clients see

An administrator decides in the project's settings, under Clients' timeline: Milestones and their own jobs (the default), Everything they can see, or Off.

Clients never see the critical path or the workload, and baselines stay hidden unless you turn on Show baselines to clients.

On a phone

On a phone the timeline is a list of weeks, starting with this one. Each job shows the days it runs that week, how many jobs it waits on, and Starts too soon if it begins before one of them is finished. Show earlier weeks brings back the weeks before, and jobs with no dates wait under No dates yet.

Tap a job to change its start or due day, or make it a milestone. Before you save, Skybase says how many jobs that wait on it will move. Dragging bars is for a larger screen.

Print or export it

Open More on the timeline's toolbar. Print / save as PDF prints the dates on screen and the jobs in them on A3 landscape, up to 500 rows, in light colours whatever your theme. Your browser's own Print does the same.

Download CSV gives you every job on the timeline, in its order, for a spreadsheet: its column, status, assignee, start, due day, working days, milestone and what it waits on. While you compare with a baseline, it says how many working days each job ends from it.

Work from the keyboard

↑ ↓: Move between jobs.
← →: Move the job a working day earlier or later. Add Shift for a week.
Alt ← →: Move the due date. Add Shift to move the start instead.
l: Link the job to one that waits on it.
Space: The job's dates and links, and what moved it.
t: Scroll to today. = and - zoom in and out.

The working week

Moves, pushes and lags count working days. An administrator sets which days your team works in Account settings, under Working week. Monday to Friday is the default, and changing it doesn't move any dates.

Plan with the Timeline