Import an existing chronology from Word or Excel

You are taking over a case, or the client has sent their own chronology, and it exists as a table in Word or Excel. Rather than typing it in again, import it once: every row becomes an event on the timeline, and from then on you work in Juristic.

Three questions decide the settings. Which columns hold the dates and events? In Excel, you match them before importing, so the client's headings need not follow the template. How are the dates written? 03/04/2024 is 3 April in one format and 4 March in another. And does the table's formatting mean anything? Bold for the key events, or highlighting someone chose with care, is worth keeping.

Prepare the chronology

1. Open the timeline and click Import in the toolbar on the left. In the Upload panel, choose the Tables tab.

   

2. For a Word table, click Download template and choose Word, then copy the chronology into it. For Excel, use the existing spreadsheet with a row of column headings, or choose Excel under Download template if you want a starting layout. Only the first worksheet is read.

3. Keep one event per row: the date, the title and, where you have them, the description, notes, people and tags. Fill in the end date only for an event that runs over a period. Every row needs a date and a title: a row without either is left out of the import. Separate several people or tags in one cell with commas. If the spreadsheet separates events by party or workstream, keep those names in a column to map to Swimlane.

Spreadsheets over 20 MB are refused with This spreadsheet is too large. The maximum size is 20 MB. Reduce the file's size before uploading it.

Match the Excel columns

1. On the Tables tab, click Upload table template and choose the spreadsheet, or drag it into the panel. This button accepts your existing Excel chronology as well as the template.

2. Click Import to open Import spreadsheet, where each column is shown with its heading and sample values.

   

3. Choose what each column becomes: Start date, End date, Title, Description, Note, People, Tags, Swimlane or Don't import. Columns with template headings are pre-filled. With AI access, other columns may have suggestions too, marked with a sparkle and Suggested by AI when you point at it. Check each suggestion against the sample values, especially when the client has used "notes" for a description of the event.

4. Map the party or workstream column to Swimlane if each event should go into the lane named in its cell, such as "Claimant" or "Respondent". Swimlanes that do not exist yet are created. To see and arrange them after importing, choose Relative: see show each party's side in swimlanes.

   

5. Check that Start date and Title each have a column. Import stays disabled while either is missing, with a message such as Choose a column for: Title. Each field belongs to one column: assigning Title to a different column sets the previous title column to Don't import. Several columns can be set to Don't import.

   

6. Check Date format against the file's dates, for example DD/MM/YYYY when 03/04/2024 means 3 April. A suggested format is pre-selected with Detected from the dates in the file or Suggested by AI from the dates in the file beneath it. If there is no suggestion, the timeline's current format is selected. The chosen format also applies to the timeline and can be changed later.

7. Choose Keep spreadsheet styling or Use organisation default styling, as explained below.

8. Click Import to add the rows as events.

Import the Word table

1. On the Tables tab, click Upload table template and choose the filled-in Word template, or drag it into the panel.

2. Click Import to open Choose date format. Word uses the template layout rather than the Excel column-mapping step.

   

3. Choose Date format to match the dates in the table. The timeline shows its dates in this format too; you can change that later.

4. Choose Keep spreadsheet styling or Use organisation default styling, as explained below.

5. Click Import to add the rows as events.

After either import, go through the events in the table and correct anything that came in wrong: see check and correct the chronology in a table.

Which styling to choose

Keep spreadsheet styling keeps the bold, italics and other formatting of the title and description cells. From Excel, the colour of each title cell becomes the colour of its event. Use organisation default styling imports plain text in the firm's default event colours, so the events look like the rest of the firm's timelines.

Tips from practice

• Clean the table first. Unmerge cells, give every row its own date and write all the dates in one format. A table that reads cleanly imports cleanly.
• Import once, then work in Juristic. Make further changes on the timeline, not in the old table, so there is one chronology and not two.
• The documents come afterwards. The templates' Documents column is not imported, and Excel has no Documents mapping. Leave an evidence-reference column as Don't import and link each event to its evidence on the timeline: see link each event to its evidence.
• Tags carry the issues. If the old chronology marks events by issue, put the issues in the tags column. See tag events by issue.

Starting from scratch instead? See start the chronology for a new dispute.