Connecting Forecast projects to Azure DevOps

The integration between Azure DevOps and Forecast allows developers to collaborate with other teams and access information held in distributed systems in the end-to-end software delivery value stream. This article provides a guide to integrating with Azure DevOps so that projects, tasks and epics can be synced between Azure DevOps and Forecast.

If you are looking to install the integration, see Setting up the Azure DevOps integration for Forecast instead.

This article includes:

• Synchronizing an existing Forecast project
• Synchronizing existing tasks between synced projects

Related articles:

• Configuring the data sync between Azure DevOps and Forecast
• Setting up the Azure DevOps integration for Forecast
• Importing users from Azure DevOps

Synchronizing a new or existing Forecast project

This integration works by syncing existing Forecast projects to existing Azure DevOps Projects. To be able to do this process, Manager permission is required in order to be able to view the project settings. 

To synchronize a Forecast project to Azure DevOps

1. Click Projects in the top bar.
2. Select All Projects from the dropdown.
3. Click the project you wish to sync.
4. In the left side panel, click Settings.
5. Select Integrations.
6. If the integration was successful one of the options available will be Azure DevOps.
7. Click on Link.
8. From the pop-up that will appear, select the Azure DevOps project that this project should be synced with from the dropdown menu.
9. Choose the settings that best fit the project. Those are:
   • Sync bugs in ADO: This will synchronize the bug tasks between the two projects across platforms and any change made on one platform will be reflected in the other. However, the bug tasks from ADO will be imported as normal tasks in Forecast.
   • Use Epics as Phases: Forecast syncs ADO Features as Phases. This choice will determine if Epics will be synced as Phases as well.
   • 2-way sync: This checkbox enables/disables syncing from Forecast to Azure DevOps. If 2-way sync is enabled, changes made in Forecast will be sent back to Azure DevOps and you will be able to turn your Forecast tasks into Azure DevOps work items. Disable this if you only want data from Azure DevOps to Forecast and not the other way.
   • Use new subtasks: This choice can determine how subtasks that come over from the DevOps project will be shown in the Forecast project. The options are for the sub-tasks to appear as normal tasks or subtasks.

Once the above process is completed click on Link in order for the process to be complete. All of the information will be synced between your projects on both platforms.

Synchronizing existing tasks between synced projects

If a project in Forecast already had Phases and Tasks before being linked to a project in Azure DevOps, then tasks (issues) that predate the link will not be automatically moved to Azure DevOps.

It is possible however to manually move Forecast tasks to DevOps if the '2-way sync' option was enabled when linking the two projects. The steps below go over this process: 

1. Click Projects in the top bar. 
2. Select All Projects from the dropdown.
3. Click on the project you wish to sync.
4. In the left side panel, click Scoping.
5. Find the task that needs to be moved to DevOps and click on the three-dots icon at the end of its line (or right-click on the task).
6. Click on Move to Azure DevOps.
7. From the pop-up that will appear, select the type for this issue.
8. Click on Create.

The task will now be moved to DevOps as a work item of your choice. To confirm this, click on the task and open the task module, there will be a ADO Workitem link just above the task description if the move was successful.