Timelines
The concept of the Timeline is usually used to trace the historical development of a theme or topic. This can cover almost any subject, political, cultural, scientific … where the development takes place over time, not necessarily chronologically, giving them a point of reference which is a delimited period of time, with defined or flexible start and end dates.
An example is found in Hobbes' Internet Timeline [( www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/ ) Hobbes' Internet Timeline Copyright (c)1993-2004 by Robert H Zakon.]. Here the Timeline starts in the 1950s and is continuing today, the current start is 1957 and the end is today, that is the date of today, until the TimeLine is closed. The theme is the development of the Internet.
Although this example is not associated with Staff Report Planning it shows how a linear representation, in this case a period of time, can be used to group together different events and therefore create new relationships between them. Being linear they contain many permutations which allows for a new dimension wherebye the grouping can contain long and short periods and moments in time. Another use of timelines is in the production of films and other multimedia products where it is important to manage the sequences of different actions and images, coordinating the effect-
For Staff resource planning there are a series of timelines that can be easily identified based on the calendar years, months, weeks days and hours to which others may be added :
- The planned activity of a Company in the short, medium and long term
- The Fiscal Year
- The consignment dates of the orders
- The Default Working patterns of the Staff
- Holidays
The various TimeLines have different significance in different areas in the company, but the fact that they can be always refered to through common parameters (for example calendar date) means that the TimeLine can be a very powerful integration tool.
