Replacing Smartsheets with MS Project for the Web

[crodamer]

Hi all,

We are considering switching from Smartsheets to using Project for the Web for same project mgmt. functionality. (Smartsheets is increasing our legacy pricing by 200%)... We currently use Office 365 and everyone has Project for the Web. Has anyone done this? Any pointers? Would Project for the Web offer close to the same functionality as Smartsheets?

Anyone who has any thoughts or suggests , I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks - Clayce

[#2]

Hello @crodamer ,

I've not got hands on experience with SmartSheet but my advice would be to run proof of concept for Project for the web. As everyone has Project for the web and you use Office 365, it certainly seems like a good choice. Don't forget that Project for the web capability can easily be extended using the Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate etc.). Here is some info on Project for the web features: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/project-online-service-description/pr...

Paul

[#3]

@Paul Mather Thanks Paul. Appreciate the info.

I am getting a meeting setup with some MS folks to get more info.

One interesting thing I have found is that because we use the Project Service Automation (PSA) module in Dynamics 365 CE, I can't find the "normal" entities for Project for the Web in CDS... strange...

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Hello @crodamer ,

Regarding the Project for the web entities / tables, these will be in the Default CDS environment - have you looked there? 

Paul

[#5]

@Paul Mather Thanks for the suggestion.

You were correct... it seems that the Project for the Web entity is found in our environment named, "WideOrbit (default) (upgrade).... but our CRM entities to include the "project" entity from the PSA module in CRM is stored in our environment named, "WideOrbit Production"...

My (somewhat) uneducated guess is that if/when we migrate from PSA to Project Operations, these two project tables would be merged into our "WideOrbit Production" environment... but just a guess at this point.

[#6]

@Paul Mather 

Hi Paul,

Have another question regarding migrating from Smartsheets to MS Project for the Web.

We have nearly 1,000 smartsheet sheets to migrate. I just tried to import and export of a Smartsheet tasks .csv file. I was able to do the mapping but when it ran I got the following error, "We're sorry. You cannot directly do 'Create' operation to 'msdyn_projecttask'. Try editing it through the Resource editing UI in Dynamics or via Project."

Obviously, if we are trying to migrate 1,000 smartsheets, with lots of related tasks, we wouldn't want to have users to have to manually recreate all of the projects and tasks. It doesn't seem like we can use the normal import method directly to the cds table.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks- Clayce

[#7]

Hello @crodamer ,

Currently it is not supported to programmatically create tasks in Project for the web - it is blocked as you have seen. Unfortunately until it is supported to programmatically create tasks in Project for the web, there is no migration process.

Paul

[#8]

Wow, seems like a pretty basic requirement to be able to migrate to PFW...

Thanks for the info @Paul Mather , really appreciate your feedback.

Clayce