Timeline

Timeline answers a specific compliance question: was this record valid or active at a particular point in time? “Was this contract in effect on December 31?” “When did this board member have authority?” “What was this license’s status during the audit period?”

A timeline is a dated history of a record’s states. Lextree builds it by deriving states from your data automatically. You can also add context manually where there’s no record to derive from.

Timeline entries and sources

Each entry records one state and when it took effect:

• State — the status being recorded (the available states are configured per record type — for example, Formed, Reinstated, Merged, Dissolved).
• Effective date — when that state became valid.
• Description — optional context for the change.

Derived, manual, and imported entries

An entry can come from three places. Derived entries are generated automatically from a date already on the record; they carry a Generated badge and can’t be removed from the timeline editor — if one is wrong, fix the source date field instead and the entry corrects itself. Manual entries are ones you add yourself for events that aren’t otherwise documented. Imported entries — a dated event recorded during a data import through Data Tools import — become ordinary manual entries once created: editable and removable like any hand-added entry, with nothing to mark them as having come from an import.

Auto-generating entries from a date

An admin can set a record type’s event to auto-generate instead of waiting on a person: choose the date source (this record’s related records, or its parent) and the specific date field, then optionally add conditions so it only fires sometimes. The editor previews the resulting rule as a plain-language sentence. The date-source option only appears when a matching date field exists, on the record itself or on the related record type you point at — with none available, there’s no auto-generate option to turn on. One restriction applies to conditions: a condition can’t require the anchor date field itself to be empty, since the entry only exists because that date is already set.

Status and its absence

A record has no status until its first dated timeline event — Lextree doesn’t invent a default like “Draft” or “Pending.” A blank status is expected, not an error: it means nothing has happened to the record yet.

Not every record type carries a timeline or a status at all. Where standing on a given date isn’t a question people need answered, dates on that record type are ordinary fields, nothing more, and there’s no status column to look for.

Retrospective, not a reminder

Timeline records what has happened or is currently true — it is a backward-looking validity view, not a place for future deadlines. Future dates that should prompt action (expirations, renewals) belong in the record’s fields and the Calendar, where they drive reminders.

Timeline also isn’t the evidence itself — it synthesizes validity from your authoritative sources (records, attachments, and workflows). The proof stays in those sources; the timeline gives you the at-a-glance answer.

Editing and configuring the timeline

Configuring events and statuses

Account admins manage each record type’s timeline in Settings → Timeline Settings. Add Event appends an entry to configure, each with two fields: the event label people will record (something that happened on a date, like Filed or Expired) and the status it resolves to (Active, Revoked, and so on). A close button retires an event; saving with no events left removes the timeline from that record type entirely.

Configuration locking

Once real entries exist against a record type, its configuration partly locks: you can’t remove an event that entries are already using, and you can’t delete a record type’s timeline while entries exist against it — clear the entries first.

Editing entries on a record

Entries aren’t edited in place. Correcting a date means removing the old entry with Edit Timeline and adding a new one in its place. A pending removal shows struck through with a Will delete badge, and you can undo it right up until you save.

After you save, the removal is permanent — a timeline entry isn’t a record, so it doesn’t go to the trash and can’t be restored, the same way an individual file removed from an attachment’s Current Files skips the Activity page’s trash once saved.

Who can see the timeline

The timeline inherits access from its record: if you can view the record, you can see its timeline. On Enterprise plans, access group scoping applies as it does everywhere else.