About Populating the Timeline
Timelines are a way of grouping Profile Events for a specific Profile Rank for a faculty. A new timeline is generated every time a new Rank gets associated with a faculty (through a new appointment). The timeline is generated when an appointment record linked to a faculty profile is created.
Interfolio's Lifecycle Management (LM) uses fields such as Unit Name, Series Name, Rank Name, Journey Name (optional), and Start Date to populate the timeline. If a journey is associated with the appointment, the timeline will display the current and future events for all ranks in that journey; otherwise, it shows events for the current rank.
The Professional Journey will be present if the timeline was generated as part of a new appointment that applies a Professional Journey.
- When a Professional Journey is not applied, then there is a 1:1 relation between a Timeline and a specific Rank (e.g. an Appointment as a Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics without a Professional Journey).
- When a Professional Journey is applied, you can have multiple Ranks which will eventually correspond to multiple Appointments within the same Timeline. For example, an Appointment as an Assistant Clinical Professor when applying the Professional Journey of Clinical Professor. This means that as new appointments are created, additional timelines will not be created.
Timelines never disappear from the Faculty page even when its corresponding Appointment expires and becomes a past Appointment. This is because the Faculty could be assigned an Appointment for the same Rank in the future. Because there can only be one Timeline per Rank, Events for the new Appointment would appear in the already existing Timeline for the Rank.
Timeline Examples
Tenure Track Journey
| Ranks | Events |
|---|---|
| Assistant Professor |
|
| Associate Professor |
|
| Professor |
|
Rank with a Journey
Initial Appointment
- Rank Name: Assistant Professor
- Professional Journey Title: Standing Faculty Journey
- Start Date: 2021-12-01
| Ranks | Events |
|---|---|
| Assistant Professor |
|
| Associate Professor |
|
| Professor |
|
Mid-Appointment
- Rank Name: Associate Professor
- Professional Journey Title: Standing Faculty Journey
- Start Date: 2017-12-01
In this case, LM identifies that the first event for the Associate Professor rank has already passed by subtracting the Start Date (2017-12-01) from the current date (2019-12-01). Since two years have already passed, the timeline will appear as follows:
| Ranks | Events |
|---|---|
| Associate Professor |
|
| Professor |
|
Rank without a Journey
Initial Appointment
- Rank Name: Assistant Professor
- Professional Journey Title: Standing Faculty Journey
- Start Date: 2019-12-01
| Ranks | Events |
|---|---|
| Assistant Professor |
|
FAQs
How should I track visiting faculty?
A Rank in LM is uniquely defined by the combination of Unit, Series, and Rank Name, and a new timeline is created each time a faculty member receives a new Rank through an appointment. If a visiting faculty member returns under the exact same Unit, Series, and Rank Name, you can create a new appointment, but no new timeline will be generated; instead, events must be managed manually within the original timeline, which remains on the profile even after the appointment expires. However, if the visiting faculty member returns with the same Rank Name but under a different Unit or Series, a new timeline will be created.
If the faculty member is expected to progress through multiple Ranks, it’s advisable to maintain a one-to-one relationship between appointments and journeys—applying the full journey only as each new Rank is assigned—to ensure timelines accurately reflect their rank progression. Timelines display profile events grouped by Rank, and when a journey is linked to an appointment, the timeline will show current and future events across all ranks in that journey; otherwise, it shows events for just the current rank.
How does LM determine a faculty member’s year in rank?
When a faculty appointment is created in LM, the system calculates the faculty member’s current year in rank by comparing the appointment’s start year with the current calendar year. This determines how timeline events are populated:
- Year 0 appears when the appointment starts in the current calendar year.
- Year 1 or later appears when the appointment started in a previous year.
This logic ensures that the timeline reflects the faculty member’s actual progression rather than always starting at Year 0. However, for backdated appointments, earlier events may not be shown. This is because LM uses today’s date to determine the current year in rank, which may exclude events that would have occurred before the appointment’s start year.
Why isn’t my faculty timeline populating?
Your faculty timeline may not be populating for a few reasons:
- No events left in the series: If all events in the series have already been completed or there are no future events, the timeline will not populate events.
- Appointment with the same rank already populated a journey: If an appointment with the same rank has already populated a journey, this may prevent the timeline from populating again.
- Journey not applied at appointment creation: If the journey was not applied when the appointment was created, it will not show up on the timeline.
How do we accommodate someone with years of credit versus an accelerated timeline for promotion?
This is a non-faculty-facing system, allowing you to use descriptive details without concern for faculty perception.
You can manually revise the faculty member's journey by editing specific event details, appointment notes, and even the title (for instance, some institutions may use "Associate Professor without Tenure"). Additionally, the award of tenure can be added as an event in the faculty member's journey.
How do we ensure the timeline is set up appropriately for someone with no standard time frame for remaining at the Associate level after being granted tenure?
It is recommended to place relevant events far into the future of the faculty member's journey (e.g., 30-50 years). If the faculty member receives a promotion, it will be managed as an exception, and the timeline will be updated accordingly.
Unique events that cannot be templated can still be managed individually via the UI or data loader.