This module takes a user's time budget as well as a list of tasks (issues/cases/bugs/...) with a specified time need, and uses this data in order to calculate estimated target dates for these tasks. Optionally, target dates are then also calculated for milestones that depend on these tasks.
In order to retrieve the required data, project forecast uses various data sources: the Time Budget module for determining how much time a user plans to invest, and Views/CCK in order to retrieve the list of tasks for each user as well as some other information. For a basic working forecast, you need the following set of views and CCK fields:
- A view of tasks that need to be done or have already been completed.
- One or more filters for the above view that make an "open tasks" view out of the general "tasks" view. For correct calculations, the tasks in that view need to be sorted in the order in which they're expected to be completed.
- A "Number" or "Duration" CCK field in the task content type that specifies how much time is still required for the given task.
- A "User reference" field in the task content type that specifies which user is assigned the given task.
- And a "Node reference" field in the task content type that links to the project which contains the task. Required because the Time budget module allocates the time per project, and estimates are in consequence calculated independently per project.
If you're a coder, you can add value providers for the "hours", "nid" and/or "uid" value types in order to use e.g. the Project module's tables instead of a CCK nodereference. That's not supported out of the box though, maybe it'll be included one day.
Apart from the admin settings, this module does not directly provide a visible UI - instead, it provides Views fields that you can use in your own views, as addition to a list of tasks or milestones.
