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A timeline or event matrix chart shows events and when they occurred. It also shows the people or entities involved. A simple timeline is shown below. The events are shown in rectangles. The time that the event happened is shown at the top of each gray vertical bar. The entities involved are listed on the left of the chart in circles. In this chart the entities are Jens Jensen, Pete Petersen, and Simon Simonsen.

1. Run Timeline
In RFFlow click Tools, Auto Charts, and Enter Timeline Data. The Timeline program will run. This feature is included in both the free trial version of RFFlow and the full version. You should have RFFlow 5.03 or higher. If the data you are using is already in a spreadsheet, then you should see the Web page How to Draw a Timeline From a CSV File.

2. Adding or Removing Entities
The people or gangs involved in an investigation are the entities of that investigation. An entity can also be an investigative subject, criminal associate, business, person, place, or thing. An entity can be anything important to an investigation.

The first step in entering timeline data is to click the button.  The dialog box shown below will appear.



To add an entity, type the name of the entity in the box to the left of the button Add New Entity and then click the Add New Entity button. The entity will be added to the list at the top. The entities are arranged in the order they are added, but you can change the order or put them in alphabetical order. To move an entity up, click on it and click the Move Up button. If you want the names sorted by last name, type the last name first, e.g. Washington, George.

To remove an entity, click on the entity in the list of entities to select it. Then click the Delete Selected Entity button. You can only delete one entity at a time. The only way to edit an entity is to delete it and add it again. When you delete an entity, it will also be removed from any event to which it is connected.

In the sample above, we added the entities: Jens Jensen, Pete Petersen, and Simon Simonsen.  When you are done adding or removing entities, click the OK button.

3. Adding an Event
To add an event, click the Add Event button on the main screen of Timeline. If you want to edit an existing event, right-click on it in the main screen of Timeline and choose Edit Event.  The dialog box shown below will appear.



In the box to the right of the word Event: enter the event. For example, type "Meet at Ole's Bar in Paxton, NE." You do not need to number the events.

Next, select the year, month, and day the event occurred. To change the year, click on the year and then click the small triangle pointing up or down to increase or decrease the year. To change the month, click on the triangles pointing left or right to select earlier or later months. To select the day, click on the day. The current day will be circled.

Next select the time. To change the time, click on the hour, minute, or click AM or PM. Then click the up or down triangle to increase or decrease the value. For example, if the hour is 10 and you want 11, click on the 10 and then click once on the triangle pointing up. If the time says AM and you want PM, click on AM and then click on the triangle pointing up.

Next select the entities that were involved in this event. The right side of the dialog box will have a list of entities. Click on each one that took part in this event. You can click on more than one. To remove a selection, click on the entity again and it will be unselected. Make sure you have selected everyone who took part in the event. If you need to add entities, you have to exit this dialog box by clicking OK or Cancel and then click the button.

You can include the source of the information on this event in the box to the right of the word Source:. The source may be the person who can testify that this event really happened, an officer's report, or an interview where the information was obtained. The source should include the name of the interviewee, date, officer's name, and enough information to find the report again. The source data is optional, but can be very important if the investigation goes to trial.

After filling out the fields, click the OK button and this event will be added to the list on the main screen of Timeline. The events are listed chronologically. The list includes the event, date, time, and entities. To edit an event, right-click on it in the main screen and choose Edit Event. To delete an event, right-click on it and choose Delete Event.

4. Adding a Title
You can add a title and other information to your chart by clicking Tools in the main menu of Timeline, and Add Title. The dialog box that appears allows you to enter a title for your timeline and to enter case information. The title and case information will be added to the chart when it is drawn in RFFlow.

5. Saving Your Data
After entering all the information, you need to save this data to a file on your hard drive. Click File in the main menu of Timeline and Save in the drop-down menu. The Save As dialog box will appear.

You need to save your data so you can import it into RFFlow to create a Timeline chart. You may also want to edit the data later adding entities or events.

The folder where your data will be saved is shown to the right of the words Save in:.

To save in a different folder, click on the triangle pointing down to the right of the words Save in: and select a different folder. You can move up a folder by clicking . Remember where you saved the file so you can find it again in step 7 below.

Type the name of the file into the box near the words File name:. Just type the file name. The extension .txt will automatically be added. The files used by Timeline are text files like those created with Microsoft Notepad.

6. Drawing the Timeline Chart in RFFlow
After saving the data in a text file, you then import the file into RFFlow. RFFlow creates the Timeline chart. In RFFlow, click Tools, Auto Charts, and Draw Timeline. 

7. Opening the Text File
The Timeline chart data was saved in a .txt file. You have to be able to browse to the folder where you saved your file in step 5 and open it. The Open dialog box will appear.

The folder whose contents are displayed is listed to the right of the words Look in:. To change folders, click on the triangle pointing down and choose a new folder. You can move up one level in the hierarchy of folders by clicking .

Once you are displaying the correct folder, simply click on the name of the file and click the Open button.

8. Selecting a Line Style
All The events are connected by lines. You can choose the style of the arrow head and also whether the lines are straight horizontal and vertical lines, diagonal lines, or curves.  Just click on the stencil in the dialog box shown below and then click on the line. Finally click the OK button.

9. Selecting the Number of Pages
Next you can specify the number of pages the timeline should cover. Try using one page first. If the font is too small to read easily, try multiple pages.

10. Editing your Chart
Your Timeline chart will automatically be generated. You can then edit it using all the editing features of RFFlow. It is just like any other chart that you draw in RFFlow. You can edit the text, delete shapes, and change colors as usual. The lines are drawn in different colors.  If you are printing with a black and white printer, you may want to select the entire chart by clicking Edit, Select All and then right-click on any object and change the pen color to black.

11. Finished
At the end of this process, you will have generated two files. One is the text file (.txt) where you saved the data. That file was generated by the Timeline program. The other file is the RFFlow file (.flo) which contains the actual Timeline chart. Both should be saved as you may want to edit the Timeline data and generate another slightly different chart.

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