Migrate from Forecast to Trello

Forecast Projects map 1:1 to Trello Boards. The project name becomes the board title, project status (active, on hold, completed) maps to board visibility and archived state in Trello. We extract the project start date, end date, and description as board metadata fields. Forecast's project-level Custom Fields migrate to Custom Fields on the board after we create them in the target workspace. Projects are the first record type imported so that board context is established before any child lists and cards are created.

Forecast Phases require a hierarchical-to-flat transformation since Trello has no native phase concept. Each Forecast Phase becomes a Trello List within the parent project Board. If phases contain sub-phases, we flatten them to sibling lists under the same board, preserving the phase order by position index. Phase-level Custom Fields are recreated as Custom Fields on the board, applied to cards within that list context. This is the most significant schema transformation in the migration and is validated against the source phase hierarchy during scoping.

Forecast Tasks map 1:1 to Trello Cards, placed in the List corresponding to their parent Phase. Task name becomes the card title, description becomes the card description (rich text preserved), due date maps to card due date, and task status maps to the card's list position or a status label if the destination board uses label-based tracking. Assignee maps to Trello card member assignment. Time estimates from Forecast migrate as a checklist item labeled 'Estimated hours' rather than a native field.

Forecast Milestones are target dates tied to a Project. We create a dedicated List in the target Board (commonly named 'Milestones') and generate a card for each milestone with the milestone name as the card title and the target date as the card due date. We set the card description to note that it represents a milestone. If the milestone is a parent to multiple tasks, we create a checklist on the milestone card linking to the corresponding migrated task cards within Trello.

Forecast Time Registrations have no native Trello equivalent. We convert each time entry to a checklist item on the parent Forecast Task's migrated Trello Card. The checklist item format is '[Date] - [Hours]h ([Billable flag])' for example '2025-03-14 - 2.5h (billable)'. If the Forecast account uses rate cards, we include the calculated amount in the checklist item or in the card description. Time entries not linked to a task (project-level logging) are added as checklist items to a board-level card named 'Project-level time log'. This is a semantic conversion rather than a field-level mapping.

Forecast Rate Cards define hourly billing rates per role or person. We extract the rate card structure (role, rate amount, currency) and map it to a Trello Custom Field of type Number on the board if the target workspace has Premium (required for Custom Fields on Standard). For Standard workspaces without Custom Field support, we document the rate card values and recommend attaching a rate card reference card to the board or adding the rate structure to project-level card descriptions. The customer chooses the approach during scoping based on their Trello plan.

Forecast Custom Fields (text, numeric, choice) on Projects, Phases, Tasks, and Time Registrations are mapped to Trello Custom Fields on the board. Text fields map to Trello Text type, numeric fields to Number type, and choice fields to Dropdown type. We recreate choice options exactly as they appear in Forecast. Trello Custom Fields are scoped per board, so fields used across multiple boards require separate Custom Field creation per board. Custom Fields are created before card import to ensure field type compatibility.

Forecast Resource Assignments allocate a team member to a task with a percentage or hours. Trello has no native allocation percentage field and only supports card member assignment. We extract the allocation percentage and hours from Forecast and store the percentage as a Custom Field (type Number) on the card if the workspace has Premium, or as a card description note if on Standard. The team member assignment maps directly to Trello card members. Capacity and availability views from Forecast do not have a Trello equivalent and are documented for the customer to configure using a capacity Power-Up post-migration.

Forecast attachments on tasks migrate as Trello card attachments. We download the attachment from Forecast, upload it to the corresponding Trello card via the Trello API, and preserve the original filename and upload date as attachment metadata. Attachments larger than Trello's 10MB per file limit (Free and Standard) are flagged during scoping and handled according to the customer's preference: either split across multiple cards, hosted externally with a link added to the card, or excluded from the migration.

Forecast task comments migrate as Trello card comments. The comment body, author, and timestamp are preserved. Trello comments do not support threaded replies natively, so Forecast threaded comments are imported as sequential comments with an indent marker in the comment body to preserve the conversation structure. The original Forecast comment author name is included in the comment attribution.

Forecast task labels map to Trello card labels. We extract all label names and colors from Forecast, create matching labels on the target Trello Board, and assign them to migrated cards based on the original label-to-task relationship. If the Forecast label name exceeds Trello's 25-character limit, we truncate and append '...' to preserve the label assignment.

Forecast has no native checklist sub-object, but if the customer used external checklist workarounds or linked cards as sub-tasks, we map those to Trello card checklists. The checklist name becomes the checklist title, and each sub-item becomes a checklist item. Checklist completion state is preserved from the source. Sub-task cards linked via card-connectors in Forecast become checklist items with a link reference in Trello if the customer uses the Card Repeater or similar Power-Up.