Defining your project scope

Establish phases, create tasks, prioritize work and set deadlines through Forecast's Project Scoping functionality.

This article includes:

• Overview of the Scoping page

• Creating and managing phases

• Viewing your project's Scoping
• Managing team member availability in Scoping

Overview of the Scoping page

The Scoping page is where Project Managers can plan out their projects, determine and document the work required using phases, tasks, and deadlines, and view high-level information as to the project's progress. 

High-level project information appears at the top of the Scoping page and is intended to assist a project manager in remaining up-to-date with the project and ensuring it stays on track.

The project metrics available for each project are outlined below:

*Visible on projects for companies whose resource management setting is either Allocate people to projects or Both project allocations and task assignments. The values in Scoping are derived from project allocations created in People Schedule. 

Companies using the resource management setting Assign people to tasks do not create project allocations in People Schedule and therefore will not see these values in Scoping. To learn more about resource management settings in Forecast check out, Selecting your resource management strategy. 

**Visible on projects with Baseline enabled. Projects not configured for Baseline will not see these values in Scoping. To learn more about using Baseline in projects see, Setting and Reviewing Project Baseline (Pro and Plus only).

Creating and managing phases

In order to scope the work needed for a project, phases must be created first. Phases, sometimes referred to as milestones, represent the project's goals outlining significant events and time periods. They contain the details of the work required (tasks, team members, estimates) in order for the project to be successful. 

To add a phase

1. Click Projects in the top bar. 
2. Select All Projects from the dropdown.
3. Open the project you want to add a phase to. 
4. In the left side panel, click Scoping. 
5. Click on New Phase to add a phase.
6. Give the phase a name, and specify start and end dates.
7. Add the necessary Tasks, Roles, People and Estimates within this new phase. 
   Check out About tasks and how they work for more information on working with tasks. 

Once you have completed Scoping out your project, it might look like this:

• Planned Billable Time is calculated based on the Task Role assigned in the Scoping page.
• Actual Billable time is calculated based on the Project Role of the team member registering time against the task.
  
  • If the team member registering time does not have a Project Role, as defined in  the Team page of the project's Settings, any time they register will use Task Role when calculating Actual Billable Time.  If there is no task-assigned role, Actual Billable Time will calculate using the team member's Main Role. 

Managing options available

Within the three-dot icon on the right side of each phase, it is possible to move, duplicate, merge and delete phases. 

To duplicate a phase

1. Click on the three-dots icon on the right side of the phase.
2. Select Duplicate.

To move a phase

1. Click on the three-dots icon on the right side of the phase.
2. Select Move to another project.
3. In the pop-up select the project to move the phase to.
4. Click on Move.

To merge a phase

1. Click on the three-dots icon on the right side of the phase.
2. Select Merge Phases.
3. In the pop-up select the phase to merge with.
4. Click Update.

To delete a phase

1. Click on the three-dots icon on the right side of the phase.
2. Select Delete.
3. Confirm the deletion by selecting again Delete.

Viewing your project's Scoping

It is possible to expand or reduce the number of details visible on the Scoping page depending on your business needs. It is also possible to export your project scoping as CSV to provide option for further analysis and reporting using tools outside of the platform. How you customize your view of the Scoping page is specific to your user and will not impact the Scoping view of other team members.

Viewing options available

• Choose to view All, Active or Done phases using the dropdown at the top left. 
• Expand All to open each phase and display their task details. 
• Collapse All to close all phases and view as a list
• Use filtering to show all tasks assigned to a specific team member or all tasks with a certain label.
• To display all tasks within a phase by person or role, use the three dots at the top right to group by person and see all tasks assigned to each team member, or group by role review phase estimates or actuals by role.
• Grouping is also helpful when using Availability Meter. 
• Enable Show Retainer Periods to display the retainer periods associated with each phase within the Scoping page. 

To export a project's Scoping

It is possible to export a copy of the Scoping page by downloading a CSV version. Using the Filtering settings, it is possible to define the content that will be visible in the export itself. Note that the export will reflect the time entries in minutes.

To export Scoping as CSV customize

1. In your Project Scoping page, click on the Eye icon (Show/Hide details) on the top right.
2. In the dropdown select what information should be visible in the CSV
3. Once ready, click on the Export icon to save on your device.

Managing team member availability in Scoping

The Scoping page also allows managers to get a high-level view of resource management for a specific project. This is done by a number of indicators and features. These features will enable a project manager to check what is the total and remaining availability of the team members assigned to the project for the duration of this project, and how the availability per person or per role is looking at each phase of the project. 

Resource management options

These features can be enabled on the Scoping page from the eye icon. There are three options available:

• Availability meter: This will indicate with a bar whether the person or role is under-utilized / over-utilized. To be able to view this, it is necessary to enable the option from the eye icon and then use the three-dot icon next to the eye icon and either group by person or by role. 
  
  
  In the first screenshot, Michael is overutilized so after the project manager notices and removes some tasks from him the status changes. 
• Total Availability: This will indicate, both in the overview (high-level view), on each phase (granular level view), and also person/role (if grouped) what the total availability of the team assigned to the project is. This is derived from each team member's assigned work vs their availability for the given period.
• Remaining availability: This will indicate the remaining availability, once again both in the overview (high-level view), on each phase (granular level view), and also person/role (if grouped), of the team assigned to the project. Remaining availability is calculated from Total Availability (how many available hours a user has) - Allocated hours in the past (previous allocations) - Remaining time on tasks.