Forecasting: Predict Workload, Time, And Expenses In Workzone

You set a baseline at kickoff. You had a start date, an end date, and a plan everyone signed off on. Three weeks in, the first tasks are done, and every one took a little longer than planned. You can feel the timeline drifting. What you cannot answer with any confidence is the question your director is about to ask: are we still going to hit the date?

Most project tools leave you guessing. They show you what already happened, not where the project is heading, so you estimate and hope. Research has found that troubled projects blow past their budgets and timelines far more often than teams expect, with overruns large enough to sink careers and companies. The pattern is usually visible early. The problem is that nobody does the math in time. Forecasts does that math for you.

Quick Answers: What Is Forecasts in Workzone?

Forecasts is a capability inside Workzone Baselining that predicts where the rest of a project is likely to land based on how completed tasks have performed against the original plan.

It helps project leaders:

• See a likely finish date before the current deadline slips
• Compare the original baseline, current schedule, and forecast in one view
• Use completed-task performance to project unfinished work
• Spot schedule drift early enough to rebalance work or reset expectations
• Export the calculations behind the forecast for a transparent audit trail

Forecasts needs a saved baseline and completed tasks to learn from. The more finished work a project has, the more useful the projection becomes.

Baselining shows how far a project has drifted. Forecasts shows where that drift is taking it.

What Is Forecasts in Workzone?

Forecasts is a feature built into Workzone Baselining that projects how your unfinished work is likely to play out, based on how your finished work has performed against the baseline. In short, it:

• Answers one question: given how this project has gone so far, when is it actually going to finish?
• Learns from the gap between your original plan and your current progress
• Extends that trend forward onto the tasks that are left
• Projects schedule, time, and budget, not just the end date

Because it works from a baseline, the comparison point is already there. Workzone creates a baseline automatically the first time a task is marked complete or gets a time or expense entry, and Administrators or Managers can also create one manually at any point.

How Forecasts Works

The workflow follows the way your team already runs a project:

1. Have a baseline in place. It saves the planned schedule as the point of comparison.
2. Complete some tasks. A forecast becomes available once at least one task in the project is marked complete.
3. Open the Baseline tab in the project tray.
4. Click Forecast on the baseline row.
   

A summary of the analysis sits at the top of the tray, and you can hover over any value to see the detail behind it. The schedule view reads at a glance, with three colors telling the story:

• Gray bars: the original baseline dates and duration
• Blue bars: the current dates and duration
• Orange bars: the forecasted dates and duration

Dashed lines mark the shift between the date you planned and the date the forecast now points to.

What the Forecast Shows You

The forecast reads your finished work and applies it to the work ahead. A couple of rules shape what you see:

• It evaluates completed tasks only, since finished work is what the model learns from.
• It applies the forecast to incomplete tasks only, since that is the work still in play.

The logic is simple: if your completed tasks ran about two days long on average, Forecasts adds a similar two days to the incomplete tasks ahead. If your finished work came in on plan, the forecast stays close to your current schedule. It is a mirror of your own project, not a generic benchmark.

The overview projects three things forward:

• Schedule: duration variance and how far your finish date is likely to slip
• Time: the time your remaining work is on track to consume against what was budgeted
• Budget: the spend your remaining work is on track to reach against what was budgeted

What Forecasts Helps You Do

A forward view changes how you manage the work. Instead of reacting to a missed date after it happens, you can act on a projected one before it does. Forecasts helps you:

• Spot a slipping deadline early, while there is still room to rebalance the plan
• Give stakeholders a grounded finish date, backed by the project’s own track record instead of a gut feel
• Catch the quiet drifters before they turn into the projects everyone is scrambling to save
• See a budget or time overrun coming while you can still adjust scope or staffing
  

Who Can Use Forecasts

• Plan: Forecasts is part of Baselining, an Enterprise-level feature of Workzone.
• Creating baselines: any Administrator or Manager-level user can create one, and Workzone also creates one automatically on the first completed task or time or expense entry.
• Viewing forecasts: all user types can view and analyze baselines and forecasts.
• What a forecast needs: a baseline and at least one completed task in the project.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Forecasts in Workzone?

Forecasts is a capability inside Workzone Baselining that predicts how your incomplete tasks will perform based on how your completed tasks have drifted from the baseline. It gives you a projected finish date, time, and budget for the remaining work.

Do I need completed tasks to see a forecast?

Yes. A forecast becomes available once at least one task is marked complete, and it gets more reliable as more of the project gets done.

How do I read the colored bars?

Gray bars are the original baseline schedule, blue bars are the current schedule, and orange bars are the forecast for where the remaining work is likely to land.

Forecasting and Baselining, Together

A baseline tells you how far you have drifted from the plan. A forecast tells you where that drift is taking you. Together they close the loop between planning a project and finishing it on time. If you are new to setting one up, start with our guide to project baselines in Workzone, then turn on the forecast.

Ready to see it in your own projects? Try Workzone free and set your first baseline today.