30-04-2021



Microsoft Project Online is Microsoft's PPM solution used to select projects that help organizations achieve their strategic objectives, then tactically exec.

  • Import and analyze data from Project Web App in Power BI. The template app is designed to help you quickly connect to your Project Web App tenant in Office 365 and download a variety of data to visually explore and monitor all the key aspects of your project, portfolios and resources through 13 visually rich report pages.
  • Microsoft Project Free Trials MPUG is recognized as the official industry association for Microsoft ® Project delivering live online training, over 500 hours of on-demand video content, helpful articles, resources and PMI ® PDUs.
  • Another option is to create a new project using Project Professional. In the Project Center, choose Projects New. When you create a project this way, it is saved to Project Web App as an enterprise project. You can also create a project from scratch in Project Professional, and then save and publish it to Project Web App when you're ready.
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Overview

Microsoft Project offers the following applications to help meet your organization's needs for project and work management:

  • Project for the web
  • Project Online
  • Project Online desktop client

This article will help you understand which applications are provided in each Project subscription and what capabilities each application offers.

Microsoft project online training

Project for the web

Project for the web is Microsoft's most recent offering for cloud-based work and project management. Project for the web provides simple, powerful work management capabilities to meet most needs and roles. Project managers and team members can use Project for the web to plan and manage work of any size.

Project for the web is built on the Microsoft Power Platform. The Power Platform consists of PowerApps, Power Automate, Power BI, and the Microsoft Dataverse. Project for the web data is stored in the Microsoft Dataverse.

Microsoft Project online, free Trial

Project for the web is available through three subscriptions: Project Plan 1, Project Plan 3, and Project Plan 5. Features listed in Project for the web features interact only with data in the Project for the web data store.

Project Online

Project Online is a flexible online solution for Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and everyday work. Project Online provides powerful project management capabilities for planning, prioritizing, and managing projects and project portfolio investments—from almost anywhere on almost any device. Project Online can be used by administrators, portfolio managers and viewers, project and resource managers, and team leads and members.

Project Online is built on the SharePoint platform, and it stores data in the SharePoint data store.

Project Online is available through two subscriptions: Project Plan 3 and Project Plan 5. Features listed in Project Online features interact only with data in the Project Online SharePoint data store.

Team member functionality for Project Online is available through a Project Online Essentials or Project Plan 1 subscription. Project Online Essentials is a team member add-on subscription for customers who have Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5 subscriptions. Project Online Essentials and Project Plan 1 subscriptions gives team members a web interface to perform task and time updates to projects managed in Project Online.

Online

Team members with Project Online Essentials or Project Plan 1 subscriptions can perform the following Project Online functions:

  • Use a web-based interface
  • Update tasks, issues, and risks
  • Submit timesheets
  • Share documents and collaborate with Microsoft Teams or Skype for Business users

Project Online Essentials does not include Project for the web. Project Plan 1 includes both Project for the web and Project Online Essentials.

Project Online desktop client

Microsoft Project Online desktop client is a project management program that features automated scheduling, project resource management, and built-in reporting. Project Online desktop client can be used as a standalone application or it can connect to Project Online. Project Online desktop client is the subscription version of the Project Professional desktop client and is available in Project Plan 3 and Project Plan 5 subscriptions.

Using Project for the web and Project Online together

Although Project for the web and Project Online are separate applications, you can use them side by side. You can see all your projects from both applications in Project Home. You can use the Project Roadmap capability to build roadmaps that include projects from both applications. And you can use Power BI and the Project for the web Power BI content pack to gain insights into projects and resources across the two applications.3

This diagram shows how the applications can work together side by side.

Going forward, Microsoft will focus on Project for the web innovations. However, you can continue using Project Online with confidence as it will continue to receive key performance and security improvements.

Microsoft Project subscriptions

Microsoft Project is available through three different subscriptions to best meet the needs of your organization. These subscriptions are Project Plan 1, Project Plan 3, and Project Plan 5. To compare features across subscriptions, see Feature availability across applications and subscriptions.

Microsoft Project Online Pricing

ProductPlan 1Plan 3Plan 5
Project for the webxx xx x
Project Onlinexx xx x x
Project Online desktop clientxx

In the table above, the number of checks (x) indicates the general level of capabilities provided by a plan. For example, for Project Online, Plan 5 provides more capabilities than Plan 3.

Feature availability across applications and subscriptions

Project for the web features

Features listed in this section interact only with data in the Project for the web data store. All these features are available in all Microsoft Project subscriptions: Project Plan 1, Project Plan 3, and Project Plan 5.

FeatureDescriptionOffice 365 licensesPlan 1Plan 3Plan 5
Project, task, and time management
Board viewTrack project tasks visually for improved workflow and status monitoring by using out-of-the-box and custom task boards.View onlyYesYesYes
DependenciesSet and visually track dependencies between tasks.View onlyYesYesYes
Grid viewPlan and manage projects by using a hierarchical grid view of tasks.View onlyYesYesYes
MilestonesEstablish and track important project and task milestones.View onlyYesYesYes
Project HomeTrack and manage deliverables using start and end dates and automated scheduling.YesYesYesYes
Task schedulingGet a birds-eye view of projects that you've worked on recently, as well as important projects that you need to monitor closely.View onlyYesYesYes
Timeline view (Gantt chart)Visually track and understand project dates, dependencies, and assignments in a hierarchical timeline view.View onlyYesYesYes
Summary tasksPlan, manage, and track deliverables and phases by using summary tasks.View onlyYesYesYes
Create and use task custom fieldsAdd local custom fields to tasks in a project, add data to these fields, or update data in these fields.View OnlyYesYesYes
Collaboration
Microsoft Teams integrationCollaborate on projects in Microsoft Teams.1YesYesYesYes
Resource and program management
Project team setupManage a project team by adding and removing members and setting the working calendar.NoYesYesYes
RoadmapsBuild visual, interactive roadmaps across projects from Microsoft Project Online, Microsoft Project for the web, and Azure Boards projects.2 With Project Plan 1 you get read-only access to roadmaps. With Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5, you can also create roadmaps.View onlyView onlyYesYes
Reporting3
Read reports from Project for the web dataView out-of-the-box or custom Power BI reports, dashboards, and portals to understand project, program, portfolio, and resource data.NoNoYesYes
Create reports using Project for the web dataUnderstand the data important to your organization by building custom Power BI reports based on out-of-box reports or from scratch.
Build custom Power BI dashboards and portals to help meet specific organizational needs.
NoNoYesYes
Usability
CoauthoringWork together with stakeholders and team members to simultaneously build, edit, and update task lists, project schedules, and more.View onlyYesYesYes
Graphical indicatorsUnderstand task status, assignments, and more with graphical indicators.View onlyYesYesYes
Mobility
Mobile applicationsBuild custom mobile applications with PowerApps.4NoNoYesYes
Customization and integration
Use the out-of-the-box Project applicationUse the out-of-the-box Project application to view a project, create a new project, add new data to a project, or update existing project data.View OnlyYesYesYes
Customize views and forms 4Customize only views and forms in the out-of-the-box Project application.View OnlyYesYesYes
Use custom columnsView, add, update, or delete data in a column added to a table.View OnlyView OnlyYesYes
Use custom tables 5Create and define custom tables to hold additional data you need for your projects, portfolios, etc.NoView OnlyYesYes
Security and user management
Office Modern GroupsBuild a project team to collaborate with and easily set up a collection of resources for team members to share.YesYesYesYes
Third-Party Apps
Connect to Project for the web with third-party apps4Use a custom or third-party application to view, create, update, or delete Project data in any native or custom Project table.
Create reports in third-party applications based on Project for the web data.
NoNoYesYes

Project Online features

Features listed in this section interact only with data in the Project Online SharePoint data store. Team members with Project Online Essentials or Project Plan 1 subscriptions can perform some Project Online functions. For more information, see Microsoft Project service description - Service Descriptions | Microsoft Docs.

FeatureDescriptionProject Plan 3Project Plan 5
Project, task, and time management
Alerts and remindersStay on schedule for important upcoming tasks and project events with reminders in Outlook and Microsoft Teams.1YesYes
BaselinesSet project baselines to monitor current performance against past performance using the Project Web App.YesYes
Board viewVisually track project tasks for improved workflow and status monitoring.YesYes
Critical pathVisually track the tasks that represent the longest path through the project using the Project Web App.YesYes
Deliverable managementTrack and manage deliverables using start and end dates and automated scheduling.YesYes
DependenciesSet and visually track dependencies between tasks.YesYes
Gantt viewVisually track and understand project dates, dependencies, and assignments on a hierarchical Gantt chart using the Project Web App.YesYes
Grid viewPlan and manage projects using a hierarchical grid view of tasks using the Project Web App.YesYes
Issue and risk managementIdentify and track issues and risks at the project and task level.YesYes
Master projectsGroup smaller related projects under a single master project using the Project Web App.YesYes
NotificationsStay on top of task assignments, status, and important project events with Outlook and Teams notifications.1YesYes
Project HomeGet a birds-eye view of projects that you've worked on recently, as well as important projects that you need to monitor closely.YesYes
Project versioningCompare different versions of a project with a report that shows what changed between versions.YesYes
Summary tasksPlan, manage, and track deliverables and phases using summary tasks in the Project Web App.YesYes
Task schedulingUse task start and end dates, effort, work, lead and lag times, and dependencies to get an accurate schedule of project dates using the Project Web App.YesYes
Task updatesCapture time and status with comments on project tasks, non-project work, and non-working time.YesYes
TimelinesVisually track and understand project dates, dependencies, and assignments on a timeline view using the Project Web App.YesYes
TimesheetsTeam members can enter time and status against tasks, non-project work, and non-working time.YesYes
Timesheet approvalsTeam members can submit timesheets for approval. Resource managers and supervisors can review, approve, and decline submitted timesheets.YesYes
Non-working time setupAdd vacation, holidays, medical leave, and other nonworking time into your project schedule.NoYes
Collaboration
AttachmentsAttach documents, images, and other files at the team, project, or task level. Manage these attachments in a central library at the team or project level.YesYes
External team membersCollaborate with people from outside of your organization by granting them access to view and interact with your projects, tasks, and documents.6YesYes
Project sitesCreate and customize a hub for collaboration and documents for a project.YesYes
Microsoft Teams integrationCollaborate on projects in Microsoft Teams.1YesYes
Demand management
Project request approval workflow setupBuild the workflows you need to evaluate, prioritize, and approve incoming demand.NoYes
Project request forms creationCapture important data about incoming demand to help you evaluate and prioritize new work.NoYes
Project requestsTrack, manage, evaluate, and prioritize incoming demand from within your organization and from external customers and partners.YesYes
Resource, program, and portfolio management
Project costing and budgetingCompare planned progress and budget against actual time and costs using the Project Web App.YesYes
Project team setupManage a project team by adding and removing members, setting allocation levels, and adding external members.YesYes
Resource capacity viewsTrack and manage resource capacity at the project, team, and organization level.YesYes
Resource costingTrack and manage the resource costs of your project.YesYes
Resource engagements (bookings)Project managers can submit requests for resources by role, skills, or name. Resource managers can review requests and assign the best resources available.Yes8Yes9
Resource capacity planningTrack and manage resource capacity at the project, team, and organization level.NoYes
RoadmapsBuild visual, interactive roadmaps across projects from Microsoft Project Online, Microsoft Project for the web, and Azure Boards projects.2YesYes
Portfolio analysis and prioritizationIdentify, select, and deliver project portfolios that best align with your organization's business strategy and maximize your return on investment (ROI).NoYes
Dashboards/portalsUnderstand status, prioritization, and more at the portfolio, program, project, task, team, and resource level with real-time interactive dashboards.YesYes
Work, generic, and material resourcesAdd resources to a project, such as work resources like people, generic resources like carpenters, and materials resources like computers and cement.YesYes
Reporting3
Out-of-box reportingUse pre-built reports to understand project, program, portfolio, and resource data.YesYes
Custom reportsUnderstand the data important to your organization by building custom reports based on out-of-box reports or from scratch.YesYes
Dashboards and portalsBuild custom dashboards and portals to help meet specific organizational needs.YesYes
Customization and integration
Custom brandingCustomize your Project deployment using your own brand, logo, and colors.NoYes
Custom fieldsAdd custom fields at the project, task, and resource level to track data important to your organization and projects.YesYes
FormulasCalculate and capture important data using formulas across tasks and projects.YesYes
PowerAppsBuild and consume solutions for web and mobile (through OData) with PowerApps.4YesYes
WorkflowsAutomate and integrate business processes (through OData) with Power Automate.7YesYes
Microsoft 365 integrationCollaborate, manage documents, and more using familiar Microsoft tools and applications.1YesYes
Microsoft Planner integrationConnect Project tasks to a Planner plan and track detailed work in Planner.1YesYes
Security, user, and service management
Active Directory integrationBuild teams from any member of your organization's Active Directory.10YesYes
User managementManage user and group roles and permissions at the project, team, and organization level.NoYes
Service administrationPlan, install and configure, maintain, and extend your Microsoft Project environment as part of your Office 3651 environment.NoYes

Notes

1 Requires an Office or Microsoft 365 commercial subscription.
2 Azure Boards acquired separately.
3 Reporting for Project for the web and Project Online is available by using Power BI. Requires a Power BI license.
4 Building and using separate Power Apps beyond the out-of-the-box Project application that access Project for the web or Project Online customer data requires a separate Power Apps subscription.
5 Limited to 5 custom tables.
6 Project Online licensing for external users follows the same policy as that for internal users. Any interaction on a Project Online site requires a Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5 subscription.
7 Automating and integrating business processes with Power Automate with Project for the web data requires a Power Automate subscription and a Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5 subscription.
8 Users with a Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5 subscription can submit resource engagement requests. They cannot review, fulfill, or approve resource engagement requests.
9 Users with a Project Plan 5 subscription can review, fulfill, and approve resource engagement requests.
10 Active Directory requires a separate subscription.

Project Online desktop client features

FeatureDescription
Project and task management
BaselinesSet project baselines to monitor current performance against past performance.
Calendar viewTrack important project and task deadlines and milestones on a weekly or monthly calendar view.
Critical pathVisually track the tasks that represent the longest path through the project.
DeadlinesEstablish and track important project and task deadlines.
DependenciesSet and visually track dependencies between tasks.
Gantt viewVisually track and understand project dates, dependencies, and assignments in a hierarchical Gantt view.
Grid viewPlan and manage projects using a hierarchical grid view of tasks.
Master projectsGroup smaller related projects under a single master project.
MilestonesEstablish and track important project and task milestones.
Network diagramView tasks, dependencies, and the critical path of your project in a network diagram view.
Task schedulingUse task start and end dates, effort, work, lead and lag times, and dependencies to get an accurate schedule of project dates
Team plannerTrack the allocation and capacity of all project team members, including non-project work and non-working time.
TimelinesVisually track and understand project dates, dependencies, and assignments in a timeline view.
Inactive tasksUse inactive tasks to track work without affecting resource availability or allocation and without affecting the project schedule.
Summary tasksPlan, manage, and track deliverables and phases using summary tasks.
Task inspectorView factors that affect the scheduling of a task, such as a changed start date or error messages.
Task path analysisSee how one task connects to other tasks by highlighting its task path throughout the project.
Resource and financial management
Resource levelingResolve resource conflicts or overallocations by automatically leveling the assignments.
Work, generic, and material resourcesAdd resources to a project, such as work resources like people, generic resources like carpenters, and materials resources like computers and cement.
Project costing and budgetingCompare planned progress and budget to actual time and costs.
Resource costingTrack and manage the resource costs of your project.
Reporting
Custom reportsBuild custom reports for projects, programs, portfolios, and resources.
Out-of-box reportingUse pre-built reports to understand project, program, portfolio, and resource data.
PDF and XPS outputSave a Project file as a PDF or XPS file.
Usability
Auto-completeGet suggestions for task or resource names and dependencies as you type.
Filtered viewsFilter project plans by any value in the plan
Graphical indicatorsUnderstand task status, assignments, and more with graphical indicators.
Multi-level undoUndo multiple changes at the same time by using the Undo menu.
Sorting and groupingUse custom sorting and grouping to get a focused view of your project, tasks, and resources.
Customization and integration
Custom fieldsAdd custom fields at the project, task, and resource level to track data important to your organization and projects.
FormsCreate and deploy custom forms to capture important project data.
FormulasCalculate and capture important data using formulas across tasks and projects.
TemplatesCreate templates for common projects including project plans, teams, and assignments.
.mpp import/exportCreate new projects from existing .mpp files or create an .mpp file of an existing project.
Excel import/exportCreate new projects from Excel files or create an Excel file of an existing project.

Service considerations

Note

Project for the web is currently unavailable for GCC, GCC High, and DoD. We're working on delivering Project for the web to you but are unable to share a firm timeframe at this time.

Licensing considerations

  • Any interaction on a Project Online site requires at least a Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5 subscription within the tenant.
  • When your last Project Plan 1, Project Plan 3, or Project Plan 5 subscription expires, your Project for the web instances will not be automatically deleted until you have no active subscriptions that depend on the Microsoft Dataverse.
  • When your last Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5 subscription expires, your Project Online instances will be deleted after 120 days.
  • For Project Online trial subscriptions, your trial instances will be deleted 30 days after your trial period ends.
  • For Project for the web trial subscriptions, your trial instances will not be deleted until you have no active subscriptions that depend on the Microsoft Dataverse.

Use of SharePoint Online

Project Online requires the use of SharePoint Online, which is provisioned as part of Project Online. Rights to the SharePoint Online functionality provided with Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5 subscriptions are limited to storing and accessing data to support Project Online.

Project Roadmap and Power Automate

Project Roadmap requires the use of Power Automate, which is provisioned as part of your Project subscription. Rights to Power Automate functionality are limited to those Power Automate capabilities required by Project Roadmap. Power Automate functionality required by Project Roadmap appears as the Data Integration for Project with Flow service plan in the Apps section of the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Project for the web and Microsoft Dataverse

Project for the web requires the use of the Microsoft Dataverse for storing its data. A Microsoft Dataverse database is provisioned as part of your Project subscription. Rights to Microsoft Dataverse functionality are limited to storing and accessing data to support Project for the web. Microsoft Dataverse functionality required by Project appears as the Common Data Service for Project service plan in the Apps section of the Microsoft 365 admin center.

For Project Customers with five (5) or more Project for the web licenses, Project for the web customers may deploy to Power Platform Production and Sandbox environments.

Capacity Included/AccruedProject P1Project P3Project P5
Dataverse (formerly Common Data Service) Database: Included/tenant3 GB5 GB5 GB
Dataverse Database: Accrued/User Subscription License (USL)50 MB250 MB250 MB
Dataverse Log: Included/tenant2 GB2 GB2 GB
Dataverse File: Included/tenant20 GB20 GB20 GB
Dataverse File: Accrued/USL400 MB2 GB2 GB

Data backup and retention

Project for the web and Project Online both have the same data backup and retention policy as Office 365. For details, see Data Retention, Deletion, and Destruction in Office 365.

Project for the web boundaries and limitations

Project for the web has some limitations, which are described in the following table.

Microsoft
Entity/fieldLimit
Task
Max. hierarchy level for task10 levels
Max. links (successor + predecessor) for a task20
Max. duration of leaf task1250 days
Max. duration of summary task3650 days (10 years)
Max. resources that can be assigned to a task20 resources
Supported date range for task1/1/1984 – 12/31/2149
Project
Max. total tasks for the project500
Max. total duration of the project3650 days (10 years)
Max. total resources for the project150
Max. total links (successor only) for the project600

Project Online boundaries and limitations

Project Online has some limitations. For details, see Project Online: software boundaries and limits.