How (and When) to Use Timeline View vs. Gantt View (ClickUp Tutorial)

Inside of ClickUp, we are given a ton of different views to play around with, and for a new ClickUp user, this can be a little bit overwhelming. For anyone who is new to the ClickUp orbit, these views allow us to see our data in different layouts without changing our underlying tasks. And while most of us are going to spend our time playing around with things like a list view, maybe a board view, or perhaps a calendar view, those folks who are getting into the more advanced side of ClickUp are probably going to start exploring exploring the more advanced views that are available to us. The two most popular advanced views that anyone might be using inside their ClickUp account are the Timeline View and the Gantt View. These two views both serve a very similar purpose in allowing us to get zoomed out and look at our tasks from a bigger picture view. However, on the channel, I have received a lot of questions about Gantt View and Timeline View, how they're similar and how they're different. So. So to make sure you are prepared when you're ready to dabble in this more advanced side of the ClickUp Views conversation, we're going to be going deep into it today. I'm going to be explaining what each of these views are, the main differences between them, and when I find one more valuable than the other. But before we dive into that, I should probably say a quick hello. If you are new here on the channel, my name is Layla. I'm a ClickUp consultant and the creator here at ProcessDriven. On this channel, we share the practical tips around how to use technology, software and processes to make your overall business operation more sustainable and stress free. So if that sounds interesting to you, please do like and subscribe. Check out our other videos on the channel and with that, let's dive into today's talk. So to get us started on our tutorial today, let's go inside a Timeline view and ClickUp and let's just just explore what the heck this thing is all about. If you are on a plan that allows for Timeline View, you will find this inside your View menu under the word Timeline Shocker. You can give it a descriptive name and then click Add View to add it into your account. Keep in mind that if you are below the business plan in ClickUp, you have limited uses of this view, only 100 uses, so use them wisely. But for anyone on the business plan and up, you have unlimited uses of this view, so use them however you'd like. When we are inside a Timeline View, we're going to see something like this Pop up. Now, just like every other view in ClickUp, we see a lot of the similar view settings. In the top left corner we have a search bar where we can filter things down based on the values in either the task name, Task description, or custom field values. On the right side we've got our normal filtering options like you might expect to see anywhere else. We've got the ability to filter in and out of Me mode, we've got our options to share our view publicly, and and we have our normal export settings under this View Settings menu. All of this stuff that I just quickly went over here is kind of Views Basics. It's the same thing in just about every view that exists. So if any of this stuff that I just glossed over feels unfamiliar or foreign, if you'd like to take it a bit slower, check out this video up on the top of the screen. So beyond those features that pretty much all views have, Timeline also has a few special features that I want to make sure you're aware of. The first one I'm calling the Zoom area. I'm sure that's not what it's actually called, but to me that's what sticks in my head if I'm scrolling around my Timeline view and I've got a lot of exciting stuff going on. These settings up here in the top left would allow me to refocus my attention on the timescale or time horizon that is interesting to me. That's our Zoom area. The other special feature about Timeline View that I think is interesting to highlight is the Group by Function. This is one that's going to stand out when we compare it to Gantt later on, but Groupby allows us to take certain things inside our ClickUp account, such as the status of a task, and turn them into groupings or swim lanes that we can use to break apart our timeline. With just two tasks here, this isn't overwhelmingly helpful, but you can imagine if you had 5, 10, 16 tasks on a given day, being able to have these broken out and even collapsed into into sections so that way they kind of disappear in each chunk can be a helpful way for you to organize your timeline so it's not overwhelming, but at the same time allows you to see as much detail as you actually need. Now, to the far right of our Timeline view, we've got one other area that probably looks familiar to many of you, and that's this kind of Tasks bar. I don't know what else to call it really. This task sidebar shows us all of our unscheduled or overdue tasks in one central sidebar if this looks familiar at all, it's because it's the exact same layout and structure that you're used to seeing inside of Calendar View. Inside ClickUp, it's the same thing, just in a different view. So back in Timeline View, the reason this sidebar is really handy is if you're looking to schedule out a project or work shifts or an engagement with clients, this allows you to play a bit of scheduling Tetris here to to really see and organize your workload into these kinds of cubes. Because you can easily click and drag your assignments onto your calendar from this sidebar here without having to go find them elsewhere in ClickUp. First, let's flip over to Gantt View. We'll do an overview of that particular area before we do a bit of compare and contrast between these two views. Gantt View and ClickUp, Just like Timeline is found under the plus View menu, and if you go into this list, you'll find the word gantt right below. Kind of the subdivider for task views. Gantt View, similar to Timeline View, has that weird a hundred uses restriction per ClickUp sales page right now, which means anyone on the free plan can only use a Gantt view a hundred times. I know, it's weird. I agree with you, it's weird. Let's all tell ClickUp it's weird because it's just such a strange way to dole out features. But for anyone on the unlimited plan and up, you have unlimited uses of this view, so just keep keep that in mind. At first glance, this Gantt view looks a whole lot like the view we just left. We've got the ability to filter things down, such as by writing a number and filtering based on the task name, description custom fields. We've got the same filters that we've seen elsewhere, the same Me mode toggles over here on the side, and the same View Settings menu. Nothing shocking about any of that stuff. However, our zoom area, which in some ways is similar to Timeline View, is a bit different on this one. So yes, we have the Snap to today button just like before. So I can scroll around and click today and it'll snap me right back so that today is equal to my left sidebar. You'll see that big green bar on this one. Don't ask me why, it's a different color on this view. Next to that we have timescales, so similar to the dropdown we saw on Timeline View, these timescales allow us to change the Zoom of our overall Gantt. For some reason, we don't have the plus and minus signs on this one, so you just have to know where you're aiming for and adjust your view accordingly. But that's what this area does. This is kind of functioning the same way as a zoom control, but it looks a little different. Over to the right. Beyond the zoom area, we also have one setting that we have not seen inside of that timeline view, which is a sort by area. This allows us to basically organize the structure of these tasks based on any field that we define, such as maybe the name or the task ID or the custom field. We can sort our overall list based on that information. Finally, and perhaps most importantly to this Gantt view, we have this show menu and I want to show you, show you the show menu because the options we have in here are very, very different than any other view in ClickUp. This is the only view that exists inside ClickUp that allows us to toggle on or off live updates and toggle on or off reschedule dependencies. If you do not know what these features are, it may not matter to you. But if you are someone that's familiar with dependencies, or if you've watched this video up here and you've just learned about dependencies, understanding how this view can help you rework those, such as changing a date over time, this is a really valuable feature that is unique to this particular view. In addition to this, we also have Gantt tools inside the Gantt view. And while this is nowhere close to Ms. Projects or other Gantt heavy software out there, this does allow us to see things like critical path, the path to achieve a result, what we need to focus on, and our slack time. Basically the buffer we have in a given project. If you are someone that uses these kinds of Gantt tools, I would imagine you would find these helpful, despite them being a little bit more basic than what you might be used to. Just two more things I want to highlight here before we move on to comparing and contrast is that inside this Gantt view we do have the ability to expand and show our subtasks, parent tasks, and all that good stuff. And we have the ability to break out certain fields by adding columns to the Gantt chart. This is something that actually was only added this year, so it's relatively new to ClickUp, but it allows you to basically combine a list view and a Gantt view all in one by adding them in to one comprehensive view where the left side looks like a list and the right side is your Good old fashioned Gantt view. Now, last but not least, the last feature I want to highlight here in this Gantt view, if I just collapse that sidebar is the dependency feature itself. Now this is one that is kind of taken for granted inside of Gantt Views. But for those who haven't used a Gantt view before, let me show you these little arrows that are showing up inside our account that I can click on and delete or I can even click on and drag to. These are representing our dependency relationships. The direction of these dependencies are telling us what needs to be done before the next thing. So I'm just going to delete some of these and show you what it looks like. If I were to say step one needs to happen before step two, I can do that with these little toggleable dependencies. So if I click on this little dot here, drag it over till it snaps to step two, I have just created a dependency relationship. This is not just something that shows up in this view. In fact, if I go to step two itself, if I go into the task, that dependency shows up at the very top and also at the bottom of that task. This is a much faster alternative way than the normal approach to creating dependencies in ClickUp, which involves going into the three dots menu, locating the relationships area, clicking on dependencies and then looking up your relationship. This is very, very slow and Gantt View, given its kind of dependency superpowers, makes this process a whole lot faster. So if I go into say step two needs to be done before step three, I'm just going to click on the little dot and drag that over. Keep in mind, I can also work from multiple directions. So if for some reason task one here needs to be done before step two, I can drag from the end all the way around to the beginning and and make that connection as well. It doesn't have to be aligned with the dates. There it is. So you see how this little dotted line here, this is reflecting the dependency. Despite the fact that the dates make no sense, I am able to add them and even delete and re add them inside of ClickUp. So that's our Gantt view. By now you can probably see why so many people find these two views pretty confusing because they have a lot in common. But now let's transition over to the differences which I want to spotlight for you just for your quick reference when you're next deciding do I need a timeline or a Gantt? The first difference I want to highlight between a timeline view and a Gantt view is the zoom factor. Remember that zoom box I talked about earlier? Yeah. Well, with Timeline we're limited to only zoom out and in based on days, weeks or months. There is no year or hour option for for this layout. Meanwhile, in Gantt View we can still sort by day, by week, by month. These same three options, despite them being titled something completely different, they are essentially the same thing. But we can also sort by day and hour and by year. Those are pieces that are unique to Gantt View. So if you find yourself in a situation where you are looking to use a view to organize people's work shifts, or if you're trying to do multi year campaigns, you're going to be forced to use a Gantt view just because it's the only view that allows you to look at things at that timescale. Ganta also includes this convenient zoom to fit option, but really this isn't as useful as you might think. The second difference between these two views is the group by functionality. Remember when I showed you that Timeline allowed you to create those lanes inside the view itself? Yeah. If you need to organize information by anything other than the list and task relationships that already exist, you're going to want to end up using a Timeline view. Because those Gantt views lock you into the spaces, folders, lists and task structure that you already have, you cannot really reorganize that information other than by sorting it. So if you are someone that likes to see things chunked into stages, phases, assignee, batches, or anything like that, you're probably going to find a Timeline view more useful for you. The third difference between these two views, the third deciding factor is actually similar to that grouping by lists. Despite Timeline being super flexible and allowing you to group by assignees and custom fields and due dates and all that good stuff, it can't let you actually group by lists in your ClickUp hierarchy. Your lists and folders inaccessible. As far as Timeline View goes, it doesn't really care about them when organizing information. So if you're in a position where you need to see things broken out by what list or folder they're in or on, and just seeing those breadcrumbs that you see in the top of a task is not enough enough. You're going to want to use Gantt View. Gantt View forces you to stay inside your ClickUp hierarchy and see things in these sections based on your vertical hierarchy. So if you need to see things that way, Gantt View is going to be the winner. The fourth difference to keep in mind between these two views is Color coding. If you were someone that uses color to help prioritize or focus, you're going to find that the functionality between these two views are very, very different. In Timeline View, we can color by two things. The list, which we cannot group by, but we can color by weird, and status. Those are the only options for a Timeline View in terms of setting your color, your list color, or your status color. That's it. Meanwhile, in Gantt View, despite not being able to group by things, you've got a wider variety of things that you can actually color things by. Do not ask me why default is not an option in Timeline View and why priority is not an option in Timeline View. It feels very strange that these are different, but alas, they are. So if it is very important for you to have things color coded by priority and just seeing priority flags is not enough, you might want to keep an eye on Gantt View. Speaking of Gantt View, I've got yet another category to highlight for them, which is their visualization of dependencies. This one we already talked about as well. But when you are in Timeline View and you have tasks that are dependent on one another, you've got no idea. These are two tasks that I have set up with a dependency, and they're showing up side by side and this is how they appear in a Timeline view. No indication that they are dependent, not even like the little yellow symbol, nothing. Meanwhile, in Gantt View, it could not be clearer that there is a dependency relationship between these two pieces, thanks to the big gray arrow connecting them together. If you need to visualize blocking relationships, you know this needs to be happening before this, and it's super important to see those. Particularly if you do not rely on due dates, you're going to find Gantt View more powerful. Next up, difference number six, visual fields. This is another weird difference between these two areas. But as I showed you back on Timeline View, our options in the show menu on Timeline are very similar to our Calendar view. We can show assignees, we can show subtasks, we can show parent names and list names, but we cannot actually show any custom fields beyond that. So we can't show priority flags, we can't show custom field values. When we max out all that we can show, we end up with something like this with the little assignee picture, the task list, and that's it. By contrast with the Gantt View's weird little left sidebar, we've got a lot more options. Our Gantt View can show all of these different columns visibly inside of our Gantt view so that we have that list view on one side, Gantt on another, and we are not lacking any detail. If it's important for you to be able to see key fields beyond just date and assignee inside a given view, you might want to look at Gantt more closely. The seventh major difference between these views is another one that we've kind of talked about before, and that is the advanced settings. I have gone ahead and just grayed out the settings that are in common between these two tools, and I've left the more distinct ones in bold or in their normal font color, whatever you want to call it. And there are some minor differences between the two of these. I don't want to go into each one one by one, but I will list them off here. And if either of these highlighted features are something that are important to you, if they're deal breakers, well then there you go. You've just decided which view you need more so in a nutshell, Timeline View and Gantt View are extremely similar in ClickUp. They both allow you to see the big picture, but they have many different features to allow you to do that. If you are looking to figure out how to organize data at a larger timescale, I think in most cases you're going to find a Timeline view to be more appropriate. However, if you are looking for primarily project management or task management oversight at a larger timescale, I think you're going to find Gantt View to be more favorable option. However, if you are someone that, like me, thinks that this distinction is needlessly complex and confusing for no real value add, go ahead and check out this thing on the screen. I'll have the link in the description and the comments below, but this is a canny request right now for folks who have been upvoting and requesting that we combine these views inside of ClickUp. Personally, I'd love to see Timeline combined with Calendar View, but hey, if it's Timeline and Gantt, I'll be fine with that as well. Just something to simplify these views. If you agree that this is needlessly complex, go ahead and give this an UpVote and let ClickUp know what you would like to see while you're down there grabbing that link. Please do also like and subscribe. Let me know what you think of this video and which view you prefer in the comments below. I'll see you guys back here next week for another video just like this. And until next time, enjoy the process.