Live Cursors & Presence
Applies to: Pro · Enterprise
Last updated: 17-Jul-2025
Overview
When collaborating in real time, you can see where every participant is working. Live cursors highlight each peer's focused row in the Activities grid, and presence indicators show who is online, what tab they're viewing, and whether they're actively editing.
Peer Presence
Each participant in a collaboration session shares the following presence information:
| Information | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Display name (resolved from the user's profile) |
| Color | Unique color assigned to the peer |
| Focused activity | The activity row they're currently viewing or editing |
| Focused column | The specific column they're interacting with |
| Selected activities | All activities they have selected |
| Active tab | Which tab they're on (Activities, Resources, Comparison, etc.) |
| Editing state | Whether they're actively typing in a field |
Presence data is ephemeral — it's not stored in the shared document and vanishes automatically 30 seconds after a peer disconnects.
Peer Colors
Each participant is assigned a unique color from a palette of 10:
| # | Color | Hex |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Teal | #4ECDC4 |
| 2 | Coral | #FF6B6B |
| 3 | Sky Blue | #45B7D1 |
| 4 | Sage | #96CEB4 |
| 5 | Yellow | #FFEAA7 |
| 6 | Plum | #DDA0DD |
| 7 | Mint | #98D8C8 |
| 8 | Gold | #F7DC6F |
| 9 | Lavender | #BB8FCE |
| 10 | Salmon | #F1948A |
- The host always receives Teal (#1).
- Other participants are assigned colors in join order (round-robin).
Cursor Overlay in the Grid
When a peer focuses on an activity row, a cursor overlay appears in the Activities grid:
- A 3 px coloured left border highlights the row in the peer's colour.
- A light background tint marks the entire row.
- A name tag appears at the top-left corner of the row, showing the peer's name in a pill with their colour.
- When hovering the name tag, a tooltip shows the peer's name and which column they're focused on (e.g., "Alice (Duration)").
Cursor positions update smoothly with a 150 ms animation, so you see cursors glide between rows rather than jump.
Peer Avatars in the Toolbar
The collaboration toolbar shows peer avatars for all connected participants:
- Up to 4 avatars are displayed inline as small circles with peer initials and colours.
- If more than 4 peers are connected, a +N overflow badge appears.
- Each avatar shows a tooltip on hover with the peer's name and role.
Idle Detection
Kazinex automatically detects when a participant goes idle:
- After 5 minutes of inactivity, the peer's cursor and focus indicators are cleared.
- Other participants still see the peer listed as connected but without a highlighted row.
- Activity resumes immediately upon any interaction.
Idle checks run every 30 seconds.
What Tab Is Everyone On?
The awareness system tracks which tab each peer is viewing. This information appears in tooltips and the collaboration panel, so you can tell if someone is:
- Reviewing activities
- Checking quality results
- Working on comparison
- Viewing resources
Tips & Best Practices
- Use cursor positions to coordinate — if you see a peer working on a WBS branch, focus on a different area to avoid stepping on each other's work.
- Check the active tab before making structural changes — if someone is reviewing quality results while you delete activities, they'll see stale data until recalculation.
- Distinguish by colour — memorise your own colour to quickly spot your cursor vs. others.