Overview
The Project Forecasting Simulator helps you test a project schedule before committing to it. You can choose a desired start date, work backward from a target end date, review how durations and dependencies affect the timeline, and—when enabled—compare the planned work with your team’s available capacity.
The feature is currently in beta and is available in GUIDEcx 2.0 for enabled accounts.
Note: To ask about access, report an issue, share feedback, or request that the beta be disabled, contact GUIDEcx Support.
What the Project Forecasting Simulator Does
Use the Project Forecasting Simulator to:
Preview dates from a project template without creating a project.
Create a project using a simulated timeline.
Select a project manager and internal team before creating the project.
Work backward from a target milestone or go-live date.
Re-forecast an existing project when a start date, go-live date, or other important date changes.
For example, suppose a customer must complete their go-live milestone by January 29. You can use that milestone’s end date as the forecast anchor. GUIDEcx then calculates when the related work would need to occur based on the plan’s durations and dependencies.
The forecast gives you a schedule to review—it does not guarantee that the current plan can meet your target date.
Before you begin
For the most useful forecast, review the template or project before you start.
Make sure:
Task durations reflect the amount of calendar time you expect the work to take.
Dependencies accurately represent the order in which work needs to happen.
Internal roles are assigned appropriately.
Internal tasks have estimated hours when you plan to use Recommend team.
Durations and dependencies drive the date forecast. Estimated hours and internal role assignments help GUIDEcx provide more useful staffing recommendations.
Before reforecasting a live project
Record any current project dates you may need to reference later.
During the beta, do not rely on a one-click undo after applying a reforecast.
If recipes, integrations, or other automations also update project or task dates, work with GUIDEcx Support before testing reforecasting on an active project. Those automations may overwrite date changes.
Understand anchors and forecasting
An anchor is the part of the project that you want to schedule around.
Your anchor can be:
The project
A phase
A milestone
A task
After choosing the anchor, select whether it should start or end on a particular date.
The simulator then calculates the related schedule using the durations and dependency relationships in your plan.
Example: Plan backward from go-live
Illustrative scenario.
Your implementation team has committed to completing a customer's go-live milestone by January 29.
Select the go-live milestone as your anchor, choose its end date, and enter January 29. The simulator calculates when the dependent work would need to happen.
If the forecast shows that the project would have needed to start earlier than planned, you can review the schedule before committing to the delivery date.
Preview a timeline from a template
Use template forecasting when you want to explore a schedule before creating a project.
Open the template you want to use.
Locate the forecasting controls at the bottom of the template.
Select the project, phase, milestone, or task you want to use as the anchor.
Choose whether the anchor should start or end on your selected date.
Enter the date.
Select Start forecasting.
Review the calculated start and end dates.
Review the critical-path indicators to identify work that affects the finish timeline.
While forecasting is active, changing durations, dependencies, or the template structure recalculates the forecast.
Important: Editing a duration, dependency, or other template content changes the template itself. The forecasted dates are the preview; changes to the template's underlying plan are template edits.
Create a project using a forecast
You can forecast and create a project either from the Projects page or from an existing template forecast.
Start from the Projects page
Use this route when you are ready to set up a new project and want to review both its schedule and staffing before creation.
Open the Projects page.
Select Create project from template.
Search for and select the template you want to use.
Enter or update the Project Name.
In Schedule, choose the project, phase, milestone, or task you want to use as the anchor.
Select whether the anchor should start or end on your target date.
Enter the date.
Select Forecast.
Review the Forecasted Start Date and Forecasted End Date.
Adjust the anchor or date and forecast again if needed.
To review staffing before creation, select Recommend team.
Review the final schedule and team selections.
Select the create-project option showing the start date you intend to use.
The new project uses the simulated schedule you selected.
If you choose to create the project using today's date instead, review the recalculated forecast for that start date before proceeding. Starting today does not necessarily preserve the original target end date.
Start from a template forecast
If you already forecasted dates while viewing a template:
Select Create project from this start date.
Review the project name and offered schedule.
Select Recommend team if you want to review staffing.
Review the final schedule and create the project when the dates and team look right.
Recommend a team before creating the project
When resource management and the team-recommendation beta are enabled for your account, Recommend team helps you compare the planned work with internal team capacity before creating the project.
Recommendations use the project's forecasted dates and resource-management data to suggest people for internal roles, including the project manager.
Review team recommendations
Run the project forecast.
Select Recommend team in the project-creation window.
Review the project's estimated internal hours and weekly demand.
Check for warnings about tasks that do not have estimated hours.
Review the project manager and each internal role.
Expand a role to compare the role's required hours with a suggested person's available hours across the project timeline.
Look for weeks when the proposed project work exceeds that person's availability.
Select a suggested person for each role you want to fill, or use the available best-match option to fill unselected roles.
Review any roles already filled by the template.
Confirm the project manager.
If capacity does not fit, adjust the planned dates and review the refreshed recommendations before continuing.
Create the project when the schedule and staffing plan look right.
The selected people fill the chosen roles and receive the tasks associated with those roles, except where the template already specifies a task assignee.
Project manager selection
The project manager defaults to you.
You can choose another project manager before creating the project. If changing the project manager means your permissions will no longer allow you to view the new project, review the warning shown before continuing.
What recommendations do—and don't do
Team recommendations support your staffing decision, but they do not guarantee a person's availability.
GUIDEcx also does not automatically move the project to a different date simply because every recommended team member is unavailable during the forecasted schedule.
If someone you want to assign is not included in the suggestions, create the project and manage the assignment afterward from the project's Team page.
Reforecast an existing project
Use Re-forecast timeline when a live project's schedule needs to change.
For example, you might use it when:
A kickoff date moves.
A customer delays a required deliverable.
A launch milestone receives a new target date.
A phase needs to begin on a specific date.
Preview the new timeline
Open the project's context menu.
Select the option to reforecast the timeline.
Choose the project, phase, milestone, or task you want to use as the anchor.
Choose whether that anchor should start or end on the target date.
Enter the target date.
Choose how GUIDEcx should handle spacing:
Keep current spacing
Close gaps
Select Preview.
Review the proposed task-by-task date changes and the forecasted end date.
Review the available options for updating the project's dates with the new forecast.
When you are ready to apply the changes, select the confirmation checkbox.
Select Update timeline.
Previewing does not change the live project. If you change the anchor, start/end selection, or target date after previewing, run Preview again before updating the timeline.
After applying the changes, review the project plan and project dates. Communicate any schedule changes that your team or customers need to act on.
Keep current spacing vs. close gaps
When reforecasting a live project, you can control how existing spacing is handled.
Option | What it does |
Keep current spacing | Preserves the spacing already present in the project timeline while rescheduling the work. |
Close gaps | Attempts to reduce gaps between dependent tasks where the schedule allows. |
Close gaps does not shorten task durations. Task durations and dependency relationships still constrain how short the project timeline can become.
Best practices for forecasting projects
Forecast around the date that actually matters
Choose the milestone, phase, or task tied to the customer's real commitment.
For example, if a customer has a contractual launch date, anchoring the relevant go-live milestone is usually more meaningful than choosing an arbitrary project start date.
Treat the forecast as a planning tool, not a promise
A target date tells GUIDEcx what you want to plan around. It does not override the work required by the template.
If a forecast lands later than expected, investigate the durations and dependencies driving the schedule before committing to a date.
Keep estimated hours current when planning capacity
A team recommendation is only as useful as the workload information available to it.
If internal tasks are missing estimates, the project's demand may appear lighter than it actually is. Review missing-estimate warnings before making staffing decisions.
Check capacity week by week
A team member may have enough total capacity for the project but still be overloaded during a particular week.
Expand each role and compare required hours with available hours across the forecasted schedule before assigning the person.
Review integrations before reforecasting active work
If another system or automation also controls project dates, confirm how the two workflows will interact before changing an active customer's timeline.
Frequently asked questions
Can I work backward from a go-live date?
Yes. Choose the project or the relevant go-live phase, milestone, or task as your anchor, select its end date, and enter the target date.
The forecast calculates the related schedule based on your durations and dependencies.
Can I anchor to a phase in the middle of a project?
Yes.
For example, you could select an implementation or build phase and request that it start on a particular date. Review the full forecast afterward to understand the effect on related work.
Choosing a phase as the anchor does not exclude the rest of the project from the forecast.
Why is the forecast later than my target date?
The plan's existing durations and dependencies may require more time than your target allows.
Review the forecast and any warnings. Depending on your project, you may need to:
Adjust appropriate task durations.
Update dependencies.
Reduce scope.
Choose a later target date.
The beta does not automatically compress task durations to meet a deadline.
What if the forecast says the project needed to start in the past?
That means the target date requires an earlier start under the current project plan.
Review the available creation options and the forecast for the start date you actually intend to use.
Do not assume that starting today will preserve your original target end date.
Why didn't closing gaps make the project short enough?
Closing gaps can reduce available spacing between dependent tasks, but it does not reduce task durations or remove dependency constraints.
Review the resulting forecast to see what is still driving the timeline.
Does a template preview change every future project?
The forecasted dates are a preview. A new project uses the forecast when you choose the project-creation option that applies the simulated start date.
However, edits you make to template durations, dependencies, or structure while forecasting change the template itself.
Can I reforecast a project more than once?
Yes. You can reforecast an existing project again when dates change.
Run a new preview and review the proposed changes each time before updating the timeline.
Will reforecasting affect task notifications?
Normal task-notification rules continue to apply.
Changing dates can change when tasks become eligible for notifications. Tasks scheduled for today or an earlier date may trigger notifications when their dependencies are met.
Review the impact before applying schedule changes and communicate relevant changes to your team and customers.
Does forecasting account for my team's workload?
The date forecast itself uses the plan's durations and dependencies.
When Recommend team is enabled, you can separately review suggested internal team members and compare the project's planned work with their available capacity before creating the project.
Review both the forecasted schedule and weekly capacity before committing to a delivery date.
Why don't I see Recommend team?
Resource management and the team-recommendation beta must be enabled for your account.
Run the forecast in the project-creation window first. If Recommend team is still unavailable, contact GUIDEcx Support.
What happens if tasks don't have estimated hours?
Missing estimates can make the project's workload appear lighter than it actually is.
Review the missing-estimate warning and update the template's internal task estimates to make capacity recommendations more useful.
Do I have to use the recommended team?
No.
You decide which suggested people to assign to internal roles. You can also create the project without filling every role and manage the team afterward.
If recommendations fail to load, you can still create the project and make assignments from the project's Team page.
Does reforecasting an existing project recommend a new team?
No. Recommend team is part of the project-creation workflow.
Reforecasting a live project updates its schedule. Review staffing separately from the project's Team page after changing the dates.
Can I use forecasting with recipes or integrations that update dates?
Check with GUIDEcx Support first.
Date-changing automations may interact with the forecasted schedule. Review those workflows before using reforecasting on active customer projects.
What should I do if a forecast fails or the dates look wrong?
First, review:
The selected anchor.
Whether you chose start or end.
The target date.
Task durations.
Dependencies.
Any message shown in the forecast preview.
If the result still looks incorrect, contact GUIDEcx Support and include:
The project or template URL.
The forecasting settings you selected.
The result you expected.
The result you received.
A screenshot.
Whether the project has work already in progress.
Whether recipes, integrations, or other automations update dates.
How do I share beta feedback or stop using the beta?
Contact GUIDEcx Support to share feedback, report an issue, or request that the beta be disabled for your account.