Forecasting allows you to analyze the potential impact of changes before you deploy them. 

A forecast operation does the following:

• Profiles the entire database to build an in-memory model. 
• Tests the changes against rules configured for the project at the intended step in the pipeline.
• Simulates the change against the in-memory model and to show how will appear in the target database.

There are two forecast project settings:

• Full Forecast
• Limited Forecast

Connections for forecast profiling in multi-schema projects:

• For SQL Server, DB2, and Postgres only one connection is used to profile the managed schemas during forecast.  The first schema will be profiled, then the second schema, then the third, etc.
• For Oracle with Liquibase Enterprise/Datical versions 7.14 and higher, multiple connections are used to profile the managed schemas during forecast.  A maximum of 10 connections are used to profile the first 10 schemas simultaneously.  Note that you may notice higher CPU utilization due to multiple connections being used for Oracle forecast profiling with Liquibase Enterprise/Datical versions 7.14 and higher.

Overriding Project Options

You can override project settings by specifying different options, either in a GUI dialog or by specifying options on the CLI. 

Forecast Using the GUI

You can forecast directly or forecast with options. 

Forecast Only

1. Open the project in the GUI
2. Click the Plan tab. 
3. Click Forecast.
4. If runtime credentials are set for the project OR no credentials are entered for the step, you are prompted for the user name and password for the database. 

Forecast with Options

A dialog presents options to override. 

1. Open the project in the GUI
2. Click the Plan tab. 
3. Click Forecast with Options 
4. In Forecast Options, specify additional options, then click Finish. 
5. If runtime credentials are set for the project OR no credentials are entered for the step, you are prompted for the user name and password for the database. 

Forecast Using the CLI

Use the forecast command in the CLI. See the forecast command listing in CLI Commands for the options you can specify. 

The command requires a deployment step argument. The example uses Dev. 

hammer forecast Dev

Forecast Results

Forecast html reports are placed in datical/<project>/Reports, sorted by date. 

See Available Log Files and Reports