The short version. Chronolane runs inside Excel and stores the timeline in your workbook. Your spreadsheet content never reaches our servers. The free plan needs no account; if you sign in for Chronolane Pro, we keep your e-mail address, the devices using Pro and your plan. The add-in sends usage events and error reports under a random ID, and this site counts visits without cookies.
1. What this policy covers
This policy explains what BYTE IDEA S.R.L. (“we”, “us”) does with personal data when you use the Chronolane add-in for Microsoft Excel (“the add-in”) and this website. It applies from 19 October 2026.
Excel, Excel for the web and Microsoft AppSource are run by Microsoft. What Microsoft collects when you use them is covered by the Microsoft Privacy Statement, not by this policy.
2. Data in your workbook
The add-in reads the table on your sheet (task names, dates, and any columns you map such as progress, dependencies, owners or lanes) in order to draw and update the timeline. This happens inside Excel on your device or, for Excel for the web, in your browser session with Microsoft.
- We do not transmit, store or process cell values, sheet names, file names or timeline settings on our servers.
- Timeline settings, styles and History snapshots are written into the workbook itself (as add-in settings and custom XML parts), so they travel with the file.
- If you share the workbook, everything Chronolane added is shared with it, like any other content in the file.
- A few preferences, such as whether you have seen the introduction tour, are kept in the add-in’s storage on your device.
3. Usage data and error reports
The free plan does not ask you to sign in. To see which features are used and to fix what breaks, the add-in sends us usage events and error reports through PostHog, an analytics service. This is part of how the published add-in works; there is no separate setting for it.
| Data | Why | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Usage events: the action (for example “timeline created from a template”, “Timescale settings applied”, “snapshot restored”, “Pro trial started”), the add-in version, the Excel host and platform, your plan (free, trial or Pro) and which version of the free plan you started on | See which features are used and where people get stuck | Legitimate interest |
| Error reports: the error message, stack trace and the part of the add-in where it happened | Find and fix bugs | Legitimate interest |
| A random ID created on first use and kept in the add-in’s storage on your device | Group events from one installation without knowing who you are | Legitimate interest |
| Technical details the analytics library adds (browser, operating system, screen size, language) and the IP address of the connection | Tell environments apart when fixing a bug | Legitimate interest |
We never receive cell values, task names, column headers, sheet or file names in usage data, and never your e-mail address. The random ID is not linked to your name or Microsoft account. If you sign in for Pro, usage events are linked to your account’s internal ID (a random code, not your e-mail address), so we can tell how Pro is used; they still contain nothing from your workbooks. PostHog records the IP address of the connection and derives an approximate location (country and city) from it; we use this only in aggregate, never to identify you.
Our legitimate interest is keeping the add-in working and improving it. You can object at any time; see Your rights.
4. Accounts and Chronolane Pro
You need an account only to start the Pro trial or to buy Pro. You sign in on chronolane.eu with Google, with Microsoft, or with a six-digit code that we e-mail to you; there is no password. To sign in Chronolane in Excel, the add-in shows a short code that you confirm on chronolane.eu/link; Excel then keeps a sign-in token in the add-in’s storage on your device.
| Data | Why | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Your e-mail address, your name if your Google or Microsoft account shares it, an internal account ID, and how you sign in (Google, Microsoft or e-mail code) | Let you sign in and recognise your account | Contract |
| Your sign-ins: for each browser and each Excel signed in, when it was created and last used, its IP address and browser type; the sign-in codes we send (stored scrambled) and the short codes that link Excel | Keep you signed in, let you sign out, and protect accounts | Contract and legitimate interest |
| Your plan: trial dates, the Pro option you bought, its status and end date, and the customer and subscription IDs at Polar | Know whether Pro is on for you | Contract |
| Each device using Pro: a name such as “Excel on Windows”, when it was first and last seen, and a scrambled (hashed) form of a random ID kept on that device | Apply the limit of three devices per account and let you sign devices out | Contract |
| Technical logs of our API, including the IP address of each request, kept for a few days; short-lived counters per IP address that limit how often codes can be requested | Security and abuse prevention | Legitimate interest |
| Your e-mail address in a simplified form (lower case, without “+” additions) and the date you used the free trial | Offer the free trial once per person | Legitimate interest |
Google and Microsoft. If you choose Continue with Google or Continue with Microsoft, that company confirms who you are under its own privacy policy and sends us your name and e-mail address. We do not receive your password, we do not keep the tokens that would let us act in your Google or Microsoft account, and we do not keep your profile picture.
Payments. Chronolane Pro is sold through Polar Software, Inc. (“Polar”), our reseller and merchant of record. Polar runs the checkout, takes the payment, charges VAT and sends invoices. Your card details go to Polar and its payment processor, never to us. Polar handles the purchase data as a controller under its own privacy policy; it tells us that you paid, what you bought and when it ends, and nothing about your card.
You can see your devices, sign them out, manage your subscription and delete your account on your account page, chronolane.eu/account. In the add-in, ⋯ › Account shows your devices and signs Excel out.
5. Feedback
If you use ⋯ › Send feedback, the ribbon’s Leave feedback button, or answer the short survey shown after your first timeline, your answers are sent to PostHog with the same random ID and the add-in version. Please don’t include personal or confidential information in free-text answers.
6. This website and cookies
This site sets no cookies unless you sign in on your account page (chronolane.eu/account or /link): then our API sets one sign-in cookie, strictly necessary to keep you signed in, removed when you sign out or after 90 days without use. To count visits we use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which does not use cookies or local storage and does not identify or follow individual visitors. Cloudflare, which delivers the site, processes each request (IP address, browser, page requested, time) to serve it and to protect it against abuse; we don’t keep request logs ourselves.
The add-in uses its own storage on your device (not cookies) for the random ID, your preferences, the date you first used it and, if you sign in, its sign-in token and your plan, as described above.
7. Emails to support
If you write to us, we receive your email address, your message and anything you attach, such as a copy of a workbook. We use them only to answer you. If you send a workbook, it stays in our support mailbox and is not used for anything else; you can clear any sensitive cells before sending it.
8. Who we share data with
Only the processors we need to run the service:
- Cloudflare, Inc. hosts this website, the add-in’s program files and our API (api.chronolane.eu), and provides the cookie-less website analytics.
- PostHog, Inc. receives the usage events, error reports and feedback described above, stored in PostHog’s EU cloud.
- Neon, Inc. hosts the database with accounts, plans and devices, in Amazon Web Services’ Frankfurt (Germany) region.
- Brevo SAS (France) sends the sign-in codes.
- Google LLC (Gmail), reached through Cloudflare Email Routing holds our support mailbox: mail to support@chronolane.eu is forwarded by Cloudflare to a Google mailbox.
Polar, which sells Chronolane Pro, and Google and Microsoft, when you choose them to sign in, are not our processors: each acts as a separate controller for its part (see Accounts and Chronolane Pro).
Each processes data only on our instructions under a data-processing agreement. Where a provider may access data from outside the European Economic Area, the transfer is covered by the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses. We do not sell personal data and do not share it with advertisers.
9. Retention
Usage events, error reports and feedback are kept only as long as they help us understand how the add-in is used and fix errors, and never longer than the data-retention period of our PostHog plan. Support emails are kept for as long as we need them to help you and for up to two years after the conversation ends. Your account, plan and devices are kept until you delete the account; a device you sign out, or that is replaced by another, is removed after 30 days; a sign-in ends after 90 days without use. Deleting the account (chronolane.eu/account › Delete account) erases your e-mail address, name, sign-ins, plan and devices at once and signs every Excel out; an active subscription has to be cancelled first so you are not charged for an account that no longer exists. Two things stay after deletion: the simplified e-mail address and date in the trial record, so the free trial cannot be claimed again, and the purchase records Polar and we must keep under tax and accounting law. Website visit statistics are aggregated and contain no personal data. Everything in your workbook is yours and is retained for as long as you keep the file.
10. Your rights
Under the GDPR you can ask us to access, correct, export or delete your personal data, restrict or object to its processing, and complain to a supervisory authority (in Romania, the ANSPDCP). Write to support@chronolane.eu; we answer within 30 days.
Without an account, usage data is linked only to the random ID, not to who you are, so we usually cannot find it from your name or email. If you want it deleted or want to object to its collection, write to us and we will work out with you how to identify it. The add-in has no switch to turn usage data off, so the way to stop it entirely is to remove the add-in.
11. Children
Chronolane is a work tool and is not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from them.
12. Changes to this policy
When we change this policy we update the date and version at the top of this page. If a change affects what the add-in collects, we will announce it on this site before it takes effect.
13. Contact
BYTE IDEA S.R.L., Str. Dinicu Golescu nr. 7, parter, spațiu comercial 3, Sector 1, București, Romania. Data protection contact: support@chronolane.eu.