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Track what was happening during the observation, such as group instruction, independent work, or a transition. Select the current activity and change it when the activity changes. Sightline keeps those periods alongside your behavior data and notes. Recording activities is available on every plan. Reviewing and editing the timeline in Results requires Starter, Pro, or an active Pro trial.

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Choose your activity set

  1. In observation setup, open Options and turn on Track activities. It is always on for ABC.
  2. Open Activity set, shown as Set · followed by the set name. Choose the set that fits the observation, such as General, Early Childhood, or a customized set.
  3. Finish setup and select Begin.
The setup’s Setting field describes the observation as a whole. It does not start the activity timeline. To prepare different choices, see Library.

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Select the activity happening now

In the recorder’s Activity bar, choose the starting activity before selecting Start. If recording has already started, your choice begins at the current elapsed time. When the activity changes, choose the next one without pausing. For example, select Transition while materials are put away, then Independent when independent work begins. Activity times follow the observation clock, so paused time is excluded. You can also use Shift + the displayed number when you are not typing in a text field. Earlier activity periods stay in the record when you clear the current choice. Time remains unassigned until you select another activity, just as it does before your first selection. Escape closes the Other picker without changing the activity.

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Save and check the timeline

End and save the observation using Recording a Session. Activity selections are saved with it; they do not have a separate save button during recording. Open the saved observation from the student’s Sessions. On Starter, Pro, or an active Pro trial, the Activity timeline shows the labels and change points alongside the observation record. On the free Community plan, inspect the recorded activities through CSV export.

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Correct a timeline later

Use your notes to correct a label or the elapsed time when an activity changed. You can also add a timeline if your notes identify the activities and their start times.
  1. In Results, select Edit beside Activity. If no timeline exists, open More actions and select Add activity log. A new log starts with the first activity in the set covering the whole observation; replace it using your notes.
  2. Make the needed changes:
  1. Review the whole timeline and select Save. Sightline updates the saved observation. Cancel discards your edits. Periods with the same label can join when their boundaries touch; a gap keeps them separate.
  2. Reopen the observation from Sessions to check the saved timeline. If Results warns that saving failed, keep it open and export the data before leaving.
Timeline edits do not rewrite existing observation prose. Check any summary or write-up against the corrected record before using it. Correcting the capitalization of a custom label also updates other periods using that label. Check them before saving.

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Read activities in an export

In a CSV, Activity names the activity associated with that row. A blank cell means no label was recorded, not that nothing was happening. The recording method determines what each row represents. Activity charts also depend on the method and available data. For interval methods, percentages describe the recorded interval measure, not exact time spent in a behavior. See Results and Exporting Data for review and output options.