Creating a Timeline graphic using R and ggplot2

In this post we’re going to be using R and ggplot2 to create a project timeline with milestones and milestone statuses.

The finished product will look like as illustrated in Figure 1

Figure 1: A timeline of the Milestone for learning Modern

require(tidyverse)
require(lubridate)
require(scales)
require(ggrepel)

set.seed(182)

asuta = tibble(
  milestone = c("kick-off\nmeeting", "Community\nOutreach and\nEngagement", 
                "Inception\nand Annexes", "Intervention\nStrategy 2.0", "Fisheries\npatterns", 
                "Progress\nReport 1.0", "MEET\nReport", "Community\nProfile", 
                "Resource \nandClimate\n","GBV\ntraining", "Intervention\nStrategy 3.0", 
                "Financing\nAccess", "Climate change\nAdaptation", "Progress\nReport 2.0"),
  date = c(100424, 300424, 100524, 200524, 300524, 080624, 300624, 150724,030824, 310724,180824, 200824, 310824, 100924),
   direction = rep(c(1,-1), times = 7),
  status = c("Implementing", "Implementing", "Reporting", "Strategy", "Implementing","Reporting", 
             "Reporting", "Reporting","Implementing", "Reporting", "Strategy", "Reporting", 
             "Reporting", "Reporting")
) |> 
  mutate(
   date = dmy(date),
    position =abs(rnorm(n = 14, mean = .15, sd = .08))  * direction,
    text_position =  if_else(position >= 0, position + 0.08, position - 0.08)
    ) |> 
  mutate(
    milestone = paste0("Milestone-", 1:14,"\n", milestone)
  ) |> 
  arrange(date)

date_range = asuta |> pull(date) |> range()

asuta.week = tibble(
  daily = seq(date_range[1], date_range[2], by = "5 day")
) |> 
  mutate(
    day = day(daily),
    month = month(daily, label = T),
    year = year(daily)
    )

ggplot()+
  geom_hline(yintercept = 0)+
  geom_segment(data = asuta, aes(x = date, y = 0, yend = position, color = status))+
  geom_point(data = asuta, aes(x = date, y = position, color = status),size = 3) +
  geom_text(data = asuta, aes(x = date, y = text_position, label = milestone, color = status), size = 3)+
  scale_x_date(expand = expansion(mult = 0.08))+
  theme_minimal()+
  theme(
    axis.title = element_blank(), 
    axis.text = element_blank(), 
    axis.ticks = element_blank(), 
    panel.background = element_blank(),
    panel.grid = element_blank(), 
    legend.position = "top",
    legend.title = element_blank(),
    legend.background = element_blank()
    ) +
  geom_text(data = asuta.week, aes(x = daily, y = -0.02, label = day), size = 2.5, color = "gray50")+
  geom_text(data = asuta.week |> distinct(month, .keep_all = TRUE), aes(x = daily, y = -0.05, label = month), fontface = "bold", color = "grey20", size = 3)+
   geom_text(data = asuta.week |> distinct(month, .keep_all = TRUE) |> slice(1) , aes(x = daily, y = -0.09, label = year), color = "black", size = 3.5)+
  ggsci::scale_color_d3(limits = c("Implementing", "Strategy", "Reporting"))

# ggsave("milestone_timeline.pdf", width = 8, height = 4, dpi = 300)

asuta = asuta |> 
  mutate(date = date+days(19))

date_range = asuta |> pull(date) |> range()


asuta.week = tibble(
  daily = seq(date_range[1], date_range[2], by = "5 day")
) |> 
  mutate(
    day = day(daily),
    month = month(daily, label = T),
    year = year(daily)
    )


ggplot()+
  geom_hline(yintercept = 0)+
  geom_segment(data = asuta, aes(x = date, y = 0, yend = position, color = status))+
  geom_point(data = asuta, aes(x = date, y = position, color = status),size = 3) +
  geom_text(data = asuta, aes(x = date, y = text_position, label = milestone, color = status), size = 3)+
  scale_x_date(expand = expansion(mult = 0.08))+
  theme_minimal()+
  theme(
    axis.title = element_blank(), 
    axis.text = element_blank(), 
    axis.ticks = element_blank(), 
    panel.background = element_blank(),
    panel.grid = element_blank(), 
    legend.position = "top",
    legend.title = element_blank(),
    legend.background = element_blank()
    ) +
  geom_text(data = asuta.week, aes(x = daily, y = -0.02, label = day), size = 2.5, color = "gray50")+
  geom_text(data = asuta.week |> distinct(month, .keep_all = TRUE), aes(x = daily, y = -0.05, label = month), fontface = "bold", color = "grey20", size = 3)+
   geom_text(data = asuta.week |> distinct(month, .keep_all = TRUE) |> slice(1) , aes(x = daily, y = -0.09, label = year), color = "black", size = 3.5)+
  ggsci::scale_color_lancet(limits = c("Implementing", "Strategy", "Reporting"))

# today()+days(10)