FAQs
Answers to common questions about retiring Project Online and moving to Planner, the PMO Accelerator or an ISV solution
Your Questions Answered
These FAQs cover the most common questions organisations ask when planning their Project Online migration.
1.
Migration and Planning
Q1. When is Project Online retiring?
Microsoft will retire Project Online in 2026. Organisations should begin discovery and pilot testing early to avoid rushed transitions.
Q2. What are the first steps in the migration?
Inventory your Project Online environment, assign a migration sponsor and run pilots across Planner, the PMO Accelerator and an ISV solution.
Q3. How long does a typical migration take?
Most organisations complete migrations in three to nine months depending on the number of projects and their complexity.
Q4. What happens to my existing Project Online projects?
They must be migrated manually or through custom tooling into Planner, the Accelerator or an ISV solution depending on project complexity.
2.
Licensing & Access
Q5. When should we use Planner?
Planner is suitable for Light projects with simple schedules, tasks and team coordination.
Q6. When is the PMO Accelerator a better fit?
Use the Accelerator for Medium complexity projects that need governance, templates, approvals and structured reporting.
Q7. When do we need an ISV solution?
Use an ISV solution for Complex projects that require advanced scheduling, financial tracking and portfolio-level dashboards.
Q8. Can we use more than one tool?
Yes. Most organisations use Planner for Light work, the Accelerator for Medium work and an ISV solution for Complex work
3.
Migration Process
Q9. Can we migrate custom fields and metadata?
Planner does not support custom field imports. These require Power Apps, ISV tools or custom migration utilities.
Q10. Will my reporting dashboards still work?
Power BI dashboards will need to be updated to connect to Planner, the Accelerator or ISV data sources.
Q11. Does Planner support portfolio reporting?
Planner has no native portfolio dashboards. Organisations need Power BI or an ISV solution for portfolio visibility.
Q12. What happens to historical data?
Legacy timesheets, metadata and custom fields must be archived or migrated using external tools.
4.
Technical Requirements
Q13. Does Planner support intake forms?
No. Intake forms and structured metadata need to be built using Power Apps or an ISV solution.
Q14. Do we still have stage gates?
The Accelerator supports lifecycle stage gates. Planner does not have built in governance workflows.
Q15. Can we recreate approval workflows?
Yes. Use Power Automate or the Accelerator to rebuild approval processes.
5.
Support & Contact
Q16. How do we prepare users for the new tools?
Run early pilots, share templates and provide governance guidance for each destination tool.
Q17. What KPIs should we track during migration?
Monitor migration progress, user adoption, dashboard coverage and dependency preservation.
Q18. Who should lead the migration?
A core team from PMO and IT should sponsor and coordinate the transition.
Need Help Planning Your Migration?
Contact us for a full assessment of your Project Online environment and guidance on Planner, Accelerator and ISV migration paths.