Over the last year, since Project for the Web has been released, I've been trying to stay excited about the new direction for Project.
Unfortunately the time has come that I can no longer recommend Project for the Web, or Microsoft Project, for my business users or other companies.
There are several fatally flawed issues with Project for the Web that make the product almost unusable.
- The reliance on the Power Platform CDS or DataFlex is a major concern, especially when you start talking about pricing for those services.
- All "additional" functionality is based on Power Apps or workflows, which are extremely confusing for end users. They do not understand how Power Apps or workflows work, and training them can be costly.
- The process to create a "template" is unworkable. Again, this is an issue with the Power Platform in general.
- The complete lack of automatic integration into 365 apps such as Exchange Online, Planner, Task, or To-do is purely dumbfounding. Teams and 365 Group integration is almost unusable for end users.
- The entire Project for the Web ecosystem is just not suited for end users.
- There is no mobile app. Seriously, how in 2020 is there not a mobile app?
Due to these and many other concerns, my business users have decided that Monday.com is the only valid solution for their needs. I do not disagree with them, and support them in that decision.
I hope that the Project Team takes this criticism in stride, if I was able to champion Project for the Web, I would, but unfortunately it seems that it will be several years before Microsoft Project will be the go to application that it once was. I hope that is not true, but in the year since Project for the Web's release, it's features have not been updated so significantly that I am hopeful.
