Views Overview

Views give you different ways to look at the same sheet data. Instead of seeing your information as rows in a table, you can display it as a Kanban board, a calendar, or a Gantt-style timeline — whichever layout fits how you think about the work.

Every view stays connected to its source sheet. Move a card on the Kanban board, and the underlying record updates. Change a date on the calendar, and the sheet reflects it. Views don't duplicate your data — they reshape it.

Kanban

A Kanban view organizes records into columns based on a status or category field. Each record appears as a card, and you drag cards between columns to update their status.

This layout works well for anything with stages: project tasks moving from "To Do" to "In Progress" to "Done," sales deals progressing through a pipeline, support tickets flowing from "Open" to "Resolved," or content pieces moving through an editorial workflow.

Obvious automatically detects which field to use for columns — typically an enum or status field. Each column represents one value, and cards stack vertically within their column. The cards show key fields from the record at a glance, and clicking a card opens the full record for editing.

You can configure which fields appear on each card through the configure sidebar, giving you control over what information is visible without opening the record. The board also supports drag-and-drop reordering within columns, so you can prioritize items by position.

Calendar

A Calendar view places records on a monthly, weekly, or daily grid based on a date field. Each record appears as an event block on the corresponding day, giving you a time-based perspective on your data.

Use a calendar view for deadlines, scheduled events, appointments, content publishing dates, or any data with a time dimension. If your sheet has both a start date and an end date, events span across multiple days on the grid.

Obvious infers the date field from your sheet schema. If your sheet has multiple date fields (say, "Created Date" and "Due Date"), you can choose which one the calendar uses through the configuration panel. Time fields are optional — without them, events appear as all-day items.

Drag an event from one date to another to reschedule it. The underlying record updates immediately. Click any date to create a new record on that day, or click an existing event to edit its details.

Timeline

A Timeline view arranges records as horizontal bars on a Gantt-style chart. Each bar spans from a start date to an end date, making it easy to see how tasks, projects, or phases overlap in time.

Timelines work best when your records have defined durations: project plans with start and end dates, product roadmaps with phase boundaries, event schedules with setup and teardown periods, or any work where understanding overlap and sequence matters.

Records appear as labeled bars in the main area, with a sidebar listing each item by name. The horizontal axis represents time — scroll left or right to move through the timeline, or zoom in and out to adjust the scale from days to weeks to months.

Like the other views, the timeline stays connected to the sheet. Resizing a bar changes the end date. Dragging a bar shifts both dates. Every change reflects in the underlying data instantly.

Creating a View

Ask the agent to create one for you:

Create a Kanban board from the Tasks sheet, grouped by status

Show me a calendar view of the Content Calendar sheet using the publish date

Build a timeline from the Project Plan sheet

The agent picks the right view type, infers the relevant fields, and creates it in your project. You can also create views from the sheet itself — when viewing a sheet, the creation options include Kanban, Calendar, and Timeline alongside documents and other artifact types.

When to Use Each View

Kanban is best when status matters most — when you need to see where things stand and move them forward by dragging between columns.

Calendar is best when timing matters most — when you need to see what's happening on specific dates and how events distribute over time.

Timeline is best when duration and overlap matter most — when you need to see how long things take and whether they conflict with each other.

All three views work from the same data. You can create multiple views from a single sheet — a Kanban for tracking status and a calendar for tracking deadlines, both reflecting the same records. Updates in one view appear everywhere.

Next Steps

• Workbooks & Sheets Overview — understanding the data that powers your views
• Chatting with Your Agent — how to ask the agent to create and modify views
• Field Types & Configuration — setting up the fields that drive your views