# Operational views

Operational views present periods, deadlines, task lanes, activity, and progress without turning workflow state into a decorative dashboard.

## Summary before detail

- Lead with a compact current-period or attention summary when it changes the user's next action.
- Use neutral panel surfaces. Restrict semantic color to small status cues, badges, and exceptional dates.
- Pair every metric with a destination or explanation. Do not create non-actionable dashboard numbers.
- Keep current, overdue, completed, and unavailable states textually distinct.

## Calendar

- Use a dense year view only when comparison across months is the task; otherwise use the smallest useful date range.
- Name months and weekdays through the interface locale.
- Give every marked date a complete accessible label containing the date and state.
- Distinguish today, selected, due, overdue, and completed with structure or text in addition to color.
- Preserve a list or timeline alternative when the calendar alone cannot communicate descriptions or precise timestamps.

## Timeline and lanes

- Use descriptive lane titles and supporting copy instead of unexplained abbreviations.
- Order events chronologically and expose the exact date or date range.
- Connect related events visually without implying completion where none exists.
- Give every lane a complete empty state; do not leave a blank column.
- Horizontal scrolling is acceptable for a deliberate time axis, but task labels and the current position must remain understandable.

## Period cards

- A period card identifies the period, status, due boundary, progress, and primary action.
- Keep summary and action styling aligned with the shared panel and button hierarchy.
- Put infrequent management actions in the page header or an action menu, not beside every metric.

## Activity rows

Activity is a collection surface. Use one clear destination, a stable timestamp, localized action language, and the same whole-row-link rules as other registries.

## Product boundary

Scheduling calculations, timezone conversion, recurrence, state transitions, snapshot generation, and permission rules remain application-owned.