Visualizations: Timelines vs. Swimlanes
The true power of Roadmunk is the ability to create multiple visualizations of your roadmap items tailored to specific needs and audiences. Visualizing a roadmap in Roadmunk takes just minutes. It's a simple matter of picking the visualization type, setting up and applying filters, and choosing headers and other pivots.
Roadmunk has two types of visualization: Timelines and Swimlanes. Visualizations are saved as roadmap views, each with its own set of filters and pivots.
Timelines
Timelines are the more traditional way of visualizing a roadmap, showing a time-oriented view of items such as initiatives and objectives punctuated by milestones to highlight goals, achievement, and other important time markers.
Timelines are great when you want to roadmap with dates. Timelines use item dates or date ranges to pivot data along a timeline. You can adjust the time scale in a Timeline as well as select time periods, including weeks, months, quarters, and years.
In a Timeline, you can select up to two fields to pivot on and use as headers. You further pivot data using color and selecting different fields for the item labels.
To get started creating Timelines, go to Create a Timeline visualization.
Swimlanes
Swimlanes are the right choice when you want a "no-dates" roadmap or a more agile roadmap that can be pivoted on themes, sprints, or epics. They allow you to plot items on a dynamic grid and choose fields for both horizontal and vertical pivots.
But Swimlanes don't have to be "date-less". For example, you can create a Swimlane that uses dates to plot items along more flexible or longer-term time periods (Quarter or Year). Or, you can assign items to time buckets (e.g., Soon or Future) and use those as a "time" pivot.
Rename a View
1. In the View dropdown on the Roadmap navbar, select the view you want to rename.
2. On the View navbar, click the Settings icon.
3. Select Rename View in the dropdown.
4. Enter a new name for the view (Title).
5. Click Save.
Who can rename a view?
You can rename a roadmap's view if you are the roadmap Owner or the roadmap has been shared with you as an Editor. If you share the roadmap as a Viewer, you can't rename any of its views.
What happens when you rename a view?
When you rename a roadmap view, all users who share the roadmap (Editors and Viewers) will see the new name. This could cause some confusion, so we recommend that you rename a view only if it's absolutely necessary.
Duplicate a View
Instead of creating a new view from scratch, you can duplicate an existing view and customize it as needed.
1. In the View dropdown on the Roadmap navbar, select the view you want to duplicate.
2. On the View navbar, click the Settings icon.
3. Select Duplicate View in the dropdown.
4. Enter a new name for the view (Title).
5. Click Duplicate.
Who can duplicate views?
You can duplicate a roadmap's view if you are the roadmap Owner or the roadmap has been shared with you as an Editor. If you share the roadmap as a Viewer, you can't duplicate any of its views.
To find out more about roadmap sharing and permissions, go to Sharing and collaboration in the Quick Guide and Share your roadmap in the Getting Started tutorial.
What happens when you duplicate a view?
Duplicating a view copies the source view's Timeline or Swimlane, filter set, and data pivots to the new view.
Because permissions apply to the roadmap, access to the new view is exactly the same as the source view. If you are the roadmap's Owner or an Editor, you can edit, rename, duplicate, delete, export, and publish the view. If you are a Viewer, you have view-only access and can only publish the view.
Delete a View
1. In the View dropdown on the Roadmap navbar, select the view you want to delete.
2. On the View navbar, click the Settings icon.
3. Select Delete View in the dropdown.
4. In the confirmation dialog, click Delete It.
Who can delete views?
You can delete a roadmap's view if you are the roadmap Owner or the roadmap has been shared with you as an Editor. If you share the roadmap as a Viewer, you can't delete any of its views.
To find out more about roadmap sharing and permissions, go to Sharing and collaboration in the Quick Guide and Share your roadmap in the Getting Started tutorial.
What happens when you delete a view?
When you delete a view, the associated Timeline or Swimlane, filter set, and data pivots are deleted. You can't recover a view once it's deleted. Before deleting a view, you may want to check with other users who share the view's roadmap first.
Deleting a view does NOT delete any of the roadmap's items.