One engine, two states
What If copies the current saved plan into an owned temporary proposal. Live and scenario calculations use the same scheduling engine. Proposal edits do not modify the live plan before Apply Changes.
- Choose What If on Timeline, or Preview impact first on a request.
- Change the proposed stage/resource/effort constraints or add a request.
- Review affected project finishes, target misses, hard deadlines and people.
- Apply Changes to commit the reviewed proposal, or Discard to leave the live plan alone.
Baseline ghosts in the scenario comparison refer to the live plan used for that proposal. They are different from a deliberately chosen historical project baseline.
Apply is a deliberate boundary
The application rejects stale proposals when saved planning has changed. Refresh and review rather than assuming yesterday's comparison remains valid. Apply records planning and meaningful history together; Discard creates no live history.
Temporary proposals expire on application/session restart. Presentation can show live or explicitly labelled What If state. See baselines and Presentation Mode.