When Project for the web first launched, one of our top priorities was to make it simple to share a project. One way we did this was to make it easy to share your Project to a Microsoft 365 group when you first assigned a user to a task. We didn’t realize at the time was the lack of flexibility we’d be giving our customers by requiring you to share your project to a Microsoft 365 group when you assigned a user to a task. We heard about this causing pain to customers in multiple ways.
The new flexibility in Project for the web allows you to assign tasks to people who are outside of your Microsoft 365 group. Some scenarios this will enable are:
- Projects can change frequently in the early planning stages. When assignments are still heavily in flux, it can be randomizing to share a project with everyone who is assigned a task at any given moment. Now, you can keep planning productively without sending unwanted signals to your team.
- Some projects are confidential and not everyone assigned work should be able to see the project plan. Now, you can continue to track all assignment details in one, organized place without compromising compliance.
- Some organizations have strict governance over Microsoft 365 group membership that makes it difficult to work or plan across group boundaries. Now, you can work across groups as your project demands.
How it works
When you have a new project, you can start by typing any user’s name into the “Assigned to” field:
When you select your first user, you’ll now have the option to decide whether to share the project with them.
If you’d still like to share, select “Add to group” and you’ll go through the process of sharing your new project with a new or existing M365 group. However, if you select “Just assign,” the task will get assigned without your Project getting shared.
After you share your project to a group, you can decide whether to add someone to the group the first time you assign a task to them.
You can always add the assignee to the group later on if and when you’re ready to share the project with them:
We make it easy to track the list of users who are assigned tasks but who aren’t in the group by giving you a list of “Other people” in the group members callout.
This will give you the flexibility you need to keep using the features you love in Project. Let us know in the comments below what else we can do to improve the collaboration and assignment experience in Project for the web—another feature in this realm we have on the roadmap coming soon is guest access! You can also submit in-app feedback by clicking the smile icon in the ribbon in Project. Please be sure to include your email so we can reach out to you with any follow ups about your feedback.
