Scoping a Project

⏱️ 5 minute read

Scoping refers to the process of defining the structure, timeline, and work breakdown of a project. In Forecast, Scoping is the foundation of a project where you establish phases, create tasks, add estimates, prioritize work, manage dependencies, set deadlines and view project progress and key financials

This article covers:

• Scoping a Project
• Managing Phases
• Project Totals
• Additional Features

Scoping a Project

Generally, when scoping a project, phases are created before tasks. Phases, also referred to as milestones, represent the project's goals outlining significant events, dates and time period and contain the details of the work required (tasks, team members, estimates).

To create a phase

1. Click Projects in the navigation bar.
2. Select All Projects from the dropdown.
3. Open the project you are working with.
4. Click Scoping in the left side panel.
5. Click New Phase.
6. Name the phase and assign its start and end dates, as required. By default, new phases inherit start and end dates from the project.
7. Repeat steps 5 - 6 for each phase, or milestone you wish to define in the project. 

Once your project contains phases, add tasks to define the work required within each phase.

• Check out About tasks and how they work for more information on working with tasks. 

To add a task to a phase

1. From Scoping, expand the Phase you are working with.
2. Click New Task.
3. Enter the details of the task by assigning a role, team member and an estimate.
4. Click +.
5. The task appears in the phase.
6. Repeat steps 2 - 4 for each task you need to create.

Managing Phases

It is possible to move, duplicate, merge and delete phases in Scoping. The following actions are available within the three dots menu on each phase. 

To create a new phase

1. Click Manage Phases at the top right of the Scoping page.
2. Click Add new Phase.
3. The new phase will appear at the bottom of the phase list.

To reorder phases

1. Click Manage Phases at the top right of the Scoping page.

2. Select your preferred order from the dropdown menu:

   • By start date (Ascending)
   • By start date (Descending)
   • Custom (Allows you to drag and drop phases manually).
3. If you selected Custom, you can drag and drop the phases to reorder them manually. 
4. Click Save Changes.

To duplicate a phase

1. Click the three-dots on the right side of the phase.
2. Select Duplicate.
3. A copy of the phase is created referencing (Duplicate) in the phase name.

To move or merge a phase

1. Click the three-dots on the right side of the phase.
2. Select Move to another project.
3. Select the project to move the phase to and click Move.
4. The phase and its tasks move to the selected project. 

To merge a phase

1. Click the three-dots on the right side of the phase.
2. Select Merge Phases.
3. Select the phase to merge with and click Update.
4. All tasks and phases merge into the selected phase.

To delete a phase

1. Click the three-dots on the right side of the phase.
2. Select Delete.
3. Confirm the deletion by selecting again Delete.
4. The phase is deleted. Tasks within the phase remain in the project and appear under Tasks with No Phase.
5. You can also delete phases in Manage Phases.

Project Summary

Once a project is scoped, key metrics display at the top of the page, providing an at-a-glance summary of the project progress and financials. The summary detail is based on the project's budget type. 

Time & Materials and Time & Materials/Fixed Hours Retainers

Fixed Price and Fixed Price Retainers

Hours

• Estimated Hours
• Actual Hours
• Remaining Work
• Projected Total

Billable Recovery

• Actual Non-Billable Hours

Actual Hours % Billable

• Proj. Total Non-Billable Hours
• Proj. Total Hours % Billable

Estimated Financials

• Revenue

Projected Total Finances

• Revenue
• Billable Value of Service (Fixed Price)
• Remaining Budget (Fixed Price)
• Value of Service (Fixed Price)
• Over/Under Servicing (Fixed Price)

The calculations used for each metric are defined in Financial Categories: Revenue Calculations.

Additional Metrics

Your project's Scoping page may contain additional metrics depending on the project.

Project Totals for Baseline-enabled projects

• Baseline Revenue

For more information on Baseline, see: Setting and reviewing project Baseline.

Additional Features

Scoping includes features to customize your view, apply filters or export the project's Scoping data as a CSV file.

Functionality

• View All, Active or Done phases.
• Filter to reduce the dataset. For example, select from People to view all tasks for a specific team member or from Task to view all tasks tagged with a label. 
• Expand/Collapse to view all tasks within a phase.
• Export the scoping dataset as a CSV file.
• Show/Hide project data and columns using the Eye.
• Group tasks by person or role with the more options menu.
• Show Retainer Periods to display the retainer periods associated with each phase within the Scoping page for retainer budget projects. 

Availability Meter

Availability Meter is a visual gauge that compares resource’s allocated project hours (from People Schedule or Timeline) with assigned task hours (from Scoping). By enabling Availability Meter and grouping by person or role, you see where a team member or role is under-utilized, approaching capacity, or over-utilized, helping prevent overbooking and burnout. 

Availability Meter is available for the following resource management settings:

• Allocate people to projects
• About Combined Mode

Features and metrics

• Availability Meter
• Total Availability
• Remaining Availability

To use Availability Meter in Scoping

1. Toggle from the Eye.
2. Group by person or role.
3. Hover on the the gauge to view the comparison of assigned work on tasks against project allocated hours. 
   

• Total availability in phase: The total project hours allocated to the resource or role.
• Availability from today until phase ends: Total project hours allocated from today through the end date of the phase.
• Remaining time on tasks in phase: Total remaining hours Estimated on tasks in the phase.

• Remaining availability in phase: The difference between Availability from today until phase ends and Remaining time on tasks in phase.

  Total Availability - Allocated hours in the past - Remaining time on tasks

Related Articles

• About tasks and how they work