The planning calendar allows users to see different appointments at the same time and to create new appointments. It allows the user to display appointments for several objects, such as a team calendar, and compare them to each other.

Usage

Use the planning calendar if:

• You want to compare objects of the same type with each other over a period of time.
• You require responsive behavior.
• You have less than 100 lines in the calendar.

Do not use the planning calendar if:

• You want to show a calendar for one object and a detailed overview of appointments over a long time interval.
• You want to show a complex or graphical representation. In this case, please use the Gantt chart.
• You have more than 100 lines in the calendar. In this case, please use the Gantt chart.

Responsiveness

In size S, the control provides pop-in behavior, which allows the user to see as many appointments as possible and to connect them with the corresponding object. If the toolbar contains too many actions for the space available, the overflow icon appears.

The interval section displaying the hours, days, and months is responsive and shows 12 values in size L, 8 values in size M, and 6 values in size S. You can override this behavior, but you should then check that the responsiveness is still working.

Types

You can define what size of interval the calendar should show, and whether multi selection should be possible. Additionally, the row header and the interval appointments are optional.

Components

This section describes the various components of the planning calendar.

Behavior and Interaction

To create an appointment, the user must trigger an action by clicking the Add   icon in the toolbar. Clicking directly on the row also creates a new appointment.

The user can click on the appointment to see further details. The app development team must define what kind of information is then shown. For example, clicking on an appointment can trigger a popover with detailed information.

A multi-select toggle can also be provided in the toolbar. This can be used, for example, to select multiple people in order to delete them from the planning calendar.

Various tooltips can be shown, but you should not use them to show additional information because users cannot access this functionality on touch devices.

Depending on the current time interval, appointments might be smaller and the text might be cut off, rather than truncated. The user can click or tap the appointment to see the details.

Interaction Flow for Switching Days

Guidelines

Switching the Row Header

To enable end users to rearrange the planning calendar by switching the row header, you can implement a flexible row header. This is not done by the control and must be implemented by the app development team.

The list items in the row header can be a value of any attribute of an appointment. The appointment attributes are part of app-specific content, so they should be specified by the app development team. The control does not provide default attributes.

Our guideline is to use the select control in the place of the calendar title. The select control will contain all the attributes that can serve as the row header. When a different attribute is selected, the calendar is rearranged accordingly. You can also add a counter after the list items to indicate how many appointments fall into a specific group.

It is also possible to have both the calendar title and select control, in which case you should have first the title and then the select.

On small screen sizes, use select instead of the calendar title. If you want to keep the calendar title, place select in the overflow menu.

Resources