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

• Scoping project work and managing phases

• Viewing and managing your Scoping section
• Managing people by availability on the scoping page

Overview of the Scoping page

The Scoping page is where Project managers can plan out their project, mainly determining and documenting the list of specific phases, tasks, and deadlines, while also being able to view some high-level information as to the project's progress. 

Those high-level project information can be viewed at the top of the scoping page as indicated by the screenshot below.

This information can, at a quick glance, assist a project manager with remaining up-to date-with the project and ensuring that the project stays on track. Each of these information points shows something different, below follows a breakdown of each of them.

Scoping project work and managing phases

In order to scope the work needed for the project, phases need to be created so tasks, people, and estimates can be assigned to each. To start scoping your project, phases need to be defined so tasks can be assigned to each. Phases are your project goals, also known as the phases of your project to make it successful.

To add a phase

1. Access your desired project from the Projects tab.
2. Select Scoping from the sub-menu (if this is a new project your Scoping section will be empty). 
3. Click on New Phase (which is located on the top right-hand side of the scoping section) to add a phase.
4. Give the phase a name , and specify start and end dates.
5. Add the necessary Tasks, Roles, People and Estimates within this new phase. 

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

Managing your phases

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 on Update.

To delete a phase

Please note that by deleting a phase, the system will only delete the actual phase and not the tasks belonging to it.

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 and managing your Scoping section

It is possible to expand or reduce the number of details visible on the Scoping page, depending on your business needs. In addition, it is also possible to export your project scoping as CSV so you can always review it later and do a comparison when your project is successfully completed.

Viewing options available

• View phases as All, Done or Active: Click on the dropdown to view phases that are either Done, Active or All of them.
• Search bar, Expand/Collapse: Click on the search bar to quickly find the task that you are looking for by name or ID. Choose to expand or collapse all of the phases in the Scoping page by clicking on the Expand/Collapse button.  
• Filtering: Click on the Filter Button to filter phases/tasks by Project, Status, Client Role, Label, or Indicator.
• Grouping: Click on the three-dots icon on the top right of the page, to group your tasks inside of each phase by person or by role.  With the grouping method, you can see how many tasks were assigned to each person or role and you can keep track of the estimated and registered time per person as well as see the planned and actual revenue.
• Show Retainer Periods: In projects with the budget type "Retainer" you can display the retainer periods in your scoping page to match the periods with your phases. 

Exporting the project 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 people by availability on the Scoping page

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.