Timeline Visualizations

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Timeline Visualizations

    Timeline visualizations in ServiceNow offer a graphical representation of an organization's activities over time, helping users quickly assess the impact of strategic and operational endeavors such as change requests and projects. There are two interactive types of visualizations: a two-dimensional (2D) view grouped by month, which can be printed, and a three-dimensional (3D) view grouped by lanes. These tools are primarily used by timeline administrators and users with appropriate roles to visualize ITSM-related activities like incidents, problems, changes, and projects.

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    Note that starting with the Xanadu release, timeline visualization is being prepared for deprecation—it will no longer be activated on new instances but remains supported. Customers should consider migrating to the Portfolio Planning Workspace (SPM Standard) application, which offers the latest experience for similar functionality.

    Key Features

    • Activation: Administrators can enable the Timeline Visualization plugin (com.snc.timelinevisualization) to start using this feature.
    • Customization: Timeline administrators (with the timelineadmin role) configure the visualizations, while users with the timelineuser role can personalize views via the Settings pane.
    • Views: Two main views include 2D timelines grouped by month and 3D timelines grouped in lanes for logical grouping of items (e.g., pending vs. open projects).
    • Summary View: Clicking a panel opens a pop-up with additional record details configured by administrators.
    • CIO Roadmap: Provides a portfolio-based project overview for organizational leaders but requires the PPM plugin (com.snc.financialplanningpmo) and manual activation; it is not enabled by default with timeline visualizations.
    • Terminology: Key components include lanes (groupings in 3D view), panels (item representations), markers (month start indicators in 3D), sliders (to control viewed time period), and slider tracks (alternative panel views).

    Practical Guidance for ServiceNow Customers

    • Planning: Before creating timeline visualizations, define clearly which organizational activities and details you want to display.
    • Setup: Create timeline visualization sets to provide leaders with visual insights into ongoing and future operational and strategic activities.
    • Migration: Since timeline visualization is being deprecated, ServiceNow recommends migrating to Portfolio Planning Workspace or Strategic Planning applications to leverage enhanced roadmap functionalities.
    • Role Management: Assign appropriate roles (timelineadmin and timelineuser) to ensure users can configure and personalize timelines effectively.

    Benefits

    Using timeline visualizations enables organizational leaders and administrators to gain a high-level, time-based view of activities, facilitating better monitoring and evaluation of projects and changes. This visualization supports strategic decision-making by grouping and summarizing critical ITSM activities in an interactive format.

    A timeline visualization is a representation of an organization's activities over time.

    Note:

    Starting with the Xanadu release, timeline visualization is being prepared for future deprecation. It will be hidden and no longer activated on new instances but will continue to be supported. For details, see the Deprecation Process [KB0867184] article in the Now Support Knowledge Base.

    Install the Portfolio Planning (standard customers) or Strategic Planning (Pro customers) application from the ServiceNow® Store. Review the Planning roadmaps in Portfolio Planning or Roadmaps in Strategic Planning documentation for guidance on the roadmap functionality available within these workspaces. Migrate to the Portfolio Planning Workspace (SPM Standard) application that provides latest experience for this functionality.

    Typically, timeline visualizations are useful for quickly assessing the impact of future strategic and operational activities such as change requests and projects. Timeline visualizations come in two varieties: a two-dimensional (2D) view where activities are grouped by month, and a three-dimensional (3D) view where activities are grouped in lanes. Both views are interactive, and the 2D view can be printed.

    Timeline administrators, users with the timeline_admin role, can set up visualizations to represent ITSM-related activities, such as incidents, problems, changes, and projects. Timeline administrators or users with the timeline_user role can personalize their timeline visualizations from the Settings pane in the visualization.

    The CIO Roadmap timeline visualization shows your organization's projects grouped by portfolios. Organizational leaders can use the CIO Roadmap to monitor and evaluate the status of current and upcoming projects.

    Note:
    Activating timeline visualizations does not activate predefined CIO roadmap. You require PPM (com.snc.financial_planning_pmo) plugin to use CIO roadmap.

    Key terms for timeline visualizations

    Lane
    A logical grouping of items on the 3D timeline visualization. For example, one lane might show pending projects while another lane shows open projects.
    Panel
    A block that represents an item record in a 2D timeline visualization, or a block that represents one or more item records in a 3D timeline visualization.
    Summary view
    A pop-up window that appears when a user clicks a panel in either the 2D or 3D timeline visualization. The summary view contains additional information about the record. Timeline administrators configure the information that appears in the summary view.
    Marker
    A bar indicating the start of a month in a 3D timeline visualization.
    Slider
    A tool used to control the time period seen in a 3D visualization.
    Slider track
    An alternative view of the panels displayed in both the 2D and 3D timeline visualization.
    Timeline elements. Timeline lanes.