Event Coloring

Written By Manos Mastorakis

Last updated About 18 hours ago

Event Coloring lets you control how events and task allocations are colored in your calendar — automatically, based on rules you define. Instead of manually setting colors on individual events, Routine computes colors from properties like calendar, label, or any custom relation in your workspace. This turns your calendar into a visual system that communicates meaning at a glance.

✍️ How Event Coloring works

Every event and task allocation in Routine has a color. By default, that color comes from the calendar it belongs to. With Event Coloring, you can change the source of that color to:

  • Calendar — the default. Events inherit the color of their calendar.

  • Label — events take the color of their assigned label (e.g. all "Work" labeled events appear in one color)

  • Custom property — events take the color of a select or color property on the event type

  • Relation — events inherit the color from a related object (e.g. a Project or Objective that has a color property)

Event coloring and allocation coloring can be configured independently — your meetings and your time blocks don't have to follow the same rules.

🎙️ How to configure Event Coloring

  1. Go to Settings → Calendars

  2. Find the Event Coloring section

  3. Choose the color source for events:

    • Calendar (default)

    • Label

    • A custom color property on your event type

    • A relation chain (e.g. Event → Project → Color)

  4. Choose the color source for allocations (task time blocks) independently

  5. Save — your calendar updates immediately

Adding a custom color property to events:

  1. Go to Settings → Types

  2. Open the Event type

  3. Add a new Color property (a select field with named color values)

  4. Define the values (e.g. Blue, Pink, Green)

  5. Go back to Settings → Calendars and set the color source to your new Color property

  6. Now set the color property on any event to control its calendar color directly

Using relation-based coloring:

  1. Ensure your events have a relation property to another type (e.g. Project or Objective)

  2. Ensure that related type has a Color or select property with color values

  3. In Settings → Calendars, set the color source to follow that relation

  4. Events now automatically inherit the color of the project or objective they belong to

💡 Why this matters

A well-configured color system turns your calendar into an information layer:

  • By label — instantly see which events are personal, work, or client-related

  • By project — all meetings related to a project share the same color

  • By objective — see at a glance which strategic priority each event supports

  • By custom property — define your own color logic to match your workflow

Teams can align on a shared color convention so everyone reads the calendar the same way — without setting colors manually on every event.

💡 Practical examples

  • Set event color to Label → all "Client" meetings appear in purple, all "Internal" meetings in blue

  • Set allocation color to Calendar → time blocks for different projects use distinct colors

  • Add a Color property to events → manually assign a color to any event with one click

  • Link events to Objectives with color values → your calendar reflects your strategic priorities automatically