In this guide, we are highlighting areas of Forecast where you can experience how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can make your daily work easier, your planning more accurate, and your collaboration more efficient.
Achieve more accurate estimations
The first key benefit of using AI in Resource and Project Management is improved estimations. Estimation of time needed to complete a task and the full project or milestone, estimation of budgets based on this time and other expenses, and the estimation of resources required - again based on the time estimate. Time is the key here. We link everything up against time.
This means that when your time estimates are increasingly more accurate, in the case of AI, you have an increasingly higher possibility of predicting whether a specific project will be successful, whether it needs more hands, or just in general whether something needs to be changed to get it back on track.
Learning from your data means that the algorithms are continuously improved to assist you even better each day. To give you a concrete example, when doing time estimates in Forecast, you specify a High and a Low Estimate. You can also assign one or more team members to the task, write a description, and label tasks.
Estimations are the foundation of setting up a successful project and staying within Scope. As soon as you've finished your Scoping, you'll see a real-time budget generated for you in the Budget tab.
Analyzing this data in an instant, Forecast can provide you with a more accurate estimate of the time needed to complete the task. The AI is using all of this data, combined with previous data inputs, to make a more reliable estimate. This estimate is then applied across the platform to present a more realistic view of your budgets and available resources.
Automate manual and tedious work
Time registrations are the foundation of your company. Based on these, you can detect what people are working on, how long time a task takes and use the knowledge to scope future projects. At Forecast the AI learn from your previous time registrations and based on this, and your input, it calculates the estimate of each task. Based on this, the AI helps you be better at planning your projects and make more realistic pitches to your clients.
But the AI doesn't stop there. It also helps you register time. Everyone knows how hard it can be to remember what you've been working on the past day, week, or even month. The Forecast AI learns from your previous week’s work to help you log time faster. Thereby you benefit from the AI and will be more efficient in registering time.
Suggested Tasks
Within the Log Time Entry popup, on the far left-hand side, you'll notice a field named Suggestions.
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This Suggestion Tab houses all of your tasks, which are collected by the AI and are chosen based on your actions. The purpose of this Suggestion Tab is to make it even easier to register time on tasks.
There are numerous reasons why a task is suggested to you. Here are some of the most common reasons:
- Because the current date is within a task date range
- The task was moved to done
- The task was recently updated
- The task is part of the current sprint
Step 1: Select one of the Suggested Tasks
Step 2: Add time to the Suggested Task, just like you would any other task.
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Automate time registrations
Have prepopulated timesheets with the Suggested Hours of work. The automated time and task will appear in their time card. The AI learns from your previous week's work to help you log time faster.
Just go to the eye icon and select to show Time Suggestions.
Better Scheduling and Utilization of Resources with Auto Scheduling
Statistics show that Project Managers spend at least two days a week on planning and re-planning projects to match their organization's or project team's capacity.
- What happens to the end deadline, if I have to push the project's start date a week?
- When can this projects start under the restriction of my organization current capacity?
Forecast will soon introduce a new feature Auto Schedule that can answer the above questions with just one click.
Based on our AI algorithms, you will be able to optimize dates and tasks to finish your project as fast as possible. Quickly find an available person with the right skill set to work on the approved tasks.
Those are some of the benefits you can expect from combining AI with Resource and Project Management. As you may have noticed, utilizing AI is all about connecting the dots between every data point to make the most out of your data. AI is especially useful for managing large amounts of data and make conclusions and suggestions based on this data. But you will especially experience little help in your everyday tasks. The manual and tedious work will be managed by the AI and by that free time for you, so you can focus on the fun part.
