There are two kinds of project timelines in SmartSource: basic project timelines and Project Management Timelines

Basic Project Timelines

Basic project timelines consist of a simple list of entries with specified due dates. This timeline is visible to all project attendees (both sponsor and bidder users). It can be used to present planned project milestones but it doesn't provide any dynamic information regarding the status of the activity (complete, incomplete, overdue, etc) and there is no linking between actions actually performed in SmartSource. this list appears on the Project Details page and includes a date and a short description for each item in the timeline. As a bidder, this type of timeline is available for informational purposes only.

Project Management Timelines

Dynamic Project-Management-enabled timelines that are composed of activities can:

• require manual bidder interaction to enter a status for an activity.
• automatically update the activity's status (complete, overdue, etc.) based on specific actions performed by users or by events occurring in SmartSource
• trigger emails reminders or notifications communicate that an activity status has changed or that an activity has been performed or needs to be performed to the appropriate users.

Project Management activities are assigned to specific project attendees by the project owner. With Project Management timelines the list of activities is filtered to show you only those activities in which you are a designated participant. The Project Management timeline is also available on the Project Details page but, the timeline is filtered to show only activities in which you are a designated participant.  Other user's activities do not appear.

»To view or work on activities in project timelines

1. Go to the Current Projects List or Historical Projects list and select a project name to open the Project Details page.

Scroll down to the Project Timeline area. If your project has no entries for a basic project timeline or if you are not a participant in any activities on a Project Management timeline, than you will not see any project Timeline Information.

2. If your project uses SmartSource Project Management then your activities, along with the scheduled time for the activity and your status will appear in a list. If the Project Timeline information doesn't include a column for Status, then the project is not set up with Project Management, you can view the information but there are no activities involved.

If you have Project Management activities in the list, depending upon the configuration of the activity there are a couple of actions you may be able to take:

• If the activity name is presented as a link (in blue with an underline) then you can select it to go to another page to perform the activity, for example if the activity is responding to a survey, clicking the activity name could open the survey for you.
• If the status is presented as a link (underlined), then you can select it to manually change the status of the activity, for example clicking on  on an "Incomplete" status could allow you to choose "Complete" or "Not Applicable".