Project Blog articles

Everything you should know about Project 2016 and Project 2019 end of support

Brian-Smith — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 15:00:00 GMT

On October 14, 2025, Project 2016 and Project 2019 will reach end of support. After this date, Project 2016 and Project 2019 will no longer receive security updates, bug fixes, or technical support. Continuing to use software after end of support can leave your organization vulnerable to potential security threats, productivity losses, and compliance issues.

Customer installations of Project 2016 and Project 2019 will continue to run after October 14, 2025; however, due to potential security risks, we strongly recommend customers upgrade from these versions before the upcoming end of support date.

Our recommendation is for customers to upgrade to Planner and Project Plan 3 to get the full-featured web and desktop apps. Additional options include upgrading to a Microsoft 365 plan to get Planner in Microsoft 365 or upgrading to Project Standard 2024 or Project Professional 2024. See the Planner and Project plans and pricing comparison, Microsoft Planner FAQ, and Project deployment guide to determine which option is best for your organization.

Upgrading to Planner and Project Plan 3

We strongly believe that you get the best value and user experience by upgrading to Planner and Project Plan 3. With Planner and Project Plan 3, you equip your organization with the Planner app in Microsoft Teams, Planner for the web, Project for the web, Project Online, and the Project Online desktop client. While final pricing for Microsoft 365 Copilot in Planner has not been announced yet, users with a Planner and Project Plan 3 license can also preview Microsoft 365 Copilot in Planner capabilities, such as creating a new plan, creating new goals, and creating new tasks.

Important! Given the upcoming end of support date for Project Server 2016 and Project Server 2019 on July 14, 2026, it is important to note that Planner and Project Plan 3 also includes the client software to connect to the on-premises Project Server and is a great option if this is how users are using Project 2016 or Project 2019 today.

Upgrading to Microsoft 365

Upgrade to a Microsoft 365 license to get Planner in Microsoft 365 for individual task management and project planning on the web. Planner in Microsoft 365 users get access to four unique views—Grid, Board, Schedule, and Charts—as well as editing access for premium plans created by users with a Planner and Project Plan 3 or Planner and Project Plan 5 license. This includes capabilities such as assigning a task, changing a task’s start and finish dates, and adding attachments to a task. However, accessing advanced capabilities with premium plans requires a subscription license.

If you’re upgrading to Microsoft 365, you might be eligible to use our Microsoft FastTrack services. FastTrack shares best practices and provides tools and resources to make your experience as seamless as possible. For more information about FastTrack, see Microsoft FastTrack.

Upgrading to Project 2024

Project Standard 2024 and Project Professional 2024 are available as a one-time purchase through a volume licensing agreement and do not receive regular feature updates. If upgrading to Project 2024 from Project 2016 or Project 2019, users will get all the features they’re used to, plus new features as well.

Related Microsoft products reaching end of support on October 14, 2025

In addition to the above Project products, several other products (some of which are often used with Project) also reach end of support or retirement on October 14, 2025. These include Microsoft Office 2016, Microsoft Office 2019, Excel 2016, Excel 2019, Outlook 2016, Outlook 2019, PowerPoint 2016, PowerPoint 2019, Visio 2016, Visio 2019, Word 2016, Word 2019, and more.

Learn about other Microsoft products reaching end of support in 2025 and bookmark the Microsoft Lifecycle page to stay informed about future events. You can also search product and services lifecycle information to get detailed information for your Microsoft products and services.

Boost your project’s success with the Baseline feature in the new Microsoft Planner

SakshiMunjal — Sun, 12 May 2024 17:39:31 GMT

Baseline is now available in the new Microsoft Planner premium plans (formerly known as Project for the web projects). With the capability, users can capture the state of a plan at a specific moment. It serves as a reference point against which the project's current progress is compared. As your project evolves, referring to this Baseline helps you determine if you're on track or if adjustments are necessary.

All Project Plan 3 and above users can leverage this feature by launching the new Planner app in Teams and then proceeding with the following steps:

Setting Your Baseline: If you haven't set a Baseline yet, simply navigate to the Baseline button and select "Create baseline". Voilà! Your project's Baseline is recorded.

Monitoring Progress: Return to this Baseline at any point to evaluate your project's status, ensuring you're moving as planned.

If you do not have a premium Project license, you can simply click on the diamond icon within the app where you can begin your free 30-day trial of advanced capabilities – including Baseline in Planner or proceed with requesting a premium license.

Stay tuned for more updates on task level variances. Keep an eye on Microsoft 365 Roadmap - View Latest Updates | Microsoft 365 for more details. Your feedback is valuable as we continue to release new capabilities. There are several ways to share your feedback with us. You can share feedback through the new Planner app in Teams directly. You can also send us your feedback via the Planner Feedback Portal.

FAQs

Can I import my Baselines from Project Desktop and/or other tools?

No, Baselines cannot be imported to Project for the web while importing the project.

Can I create multiple Baselines?

You can capture only one Baseline at the moment. To have an updated Baseline, you can delete the existing one and recapture the current state of project.

Are only project level details being captured?

No, it also records specific details for each task, including start and finish dates, percent completion, duration, and work. It's important to note that while task-level data is present in Dataverse, it is currently not available on the user interface. However, plans are underway to make this information accessible in the future. Stay tuned for updates on this.

Can I export the details I captured?

Project and task level details will be stored in Dataverse and can be exported from there.

Enhanced collaboration in Project for the Web with your Microsoft 365 license

NancyatMSFT — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 22:27:02 GMT

We’re excited to share that as of today, you can edit shared projects in Project for the Web using a Microsoft 365 license. This frequently requested feature enables you to collaborate more seamlessly with your colleagues on projects.

With this feature update, you can now access and edit the same set of capabilities in Project that you have in Planner. This means you can make updates to fields such as task name, start and due date, priority, labels, checklists, notes, and attachments. For the full list of what can and can’t be accessed with your Microsoft 365 license, check out our service description: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/project-online-service-description/project-web-service-description.

To try this out, go to any project shared with you on project.microsoft.com and make changes to any task.

This change applies to the following families of Office 365 suites and their education and GCC counterparts:

Microsoft 365 F3 and Office 365 F3
Office 365 E1
Microsoft 365 for Business Standard
Microsoft 365 for Business Premium
Microsoft E3 and Office 365 E3
Microsoft E5 and Office 365 E5

To create a project or use more advanced capabilities such as dependencies or custom fields, you should procure a Project license. If you you're interested in trying out Project for the web, you can start a free 30 day trial at aka.ms/tryprojectnow.

For more information on this feature check out our documentation. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback as you and your team members use these capabilities in your workflow. Please feel free to submit any feedback directly through our feedback portal.

Thank you!

Introducing Lead & Lag in Task Dependencies

SakshiMunjal — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 15:21:36 GMT

Welcome to 2024! As you kick off the new year with renewed momentum for your projects, here are some new features in Microsoft Project for the web* that can help you enhance execution.

As you and your teams power through tasks in your plans and projects, you might have on your wish list the ability to get a head start on the next task or introduce a delay? You can now set advancements and delays to your task dependencies to fine-tune your project timelines.

Lead times provide a head start to the consecutive event, allowing for a buffer before the dependent task begins. On the other hand, lag times introduce a delay between consecutive events, creating a gap or waiting period before the next task can start.

You can add the lead or lag through the Grid and the Task pane in days, hours, minutes, weeks or months. It also automatically gets updated in the Timeline view. For a detailed overview, hover over the dependency link in the Timeline view.

Keyboard shortcodes are also supported, like in Project Desktop in the grid view. You can add your dependency with lead or lag by inserting:

[Task Number][Dependency Type (FS/SF/FF/SS)] +/- [Lead/Lag numeral][Duration Format]

Example: 3FS+10d

Here, a finish to start dependency has been established with a lag of 10 days.

*The above functionality is available to you in Project for the web. In November 2023 at Ignite , we announced the new Microsoft Planner, bringing together to-dos, tasks, plans and projects into a single unified experience. The features you know and love in Microsoft Project for the web will be available, in the new Planner app in Microsoft Teams in early 2024 and later in 2024, in the Planner web app. Learn more about the announcement at aka.ms/thenewplanner

FAQs:

Which license users will be able to use lead-lag?

All users will be able to view lead-lag and all users with Plan 3 or greater license will be able to add and edit lead-lag to their projects.

Will importing an MPP from the Project desktop to Project for the web preserve lead-lag?

Yes, the import from the MPP option in Project for the web will allow the import of buffer/delay between tasks along with the dependencies from the original project into Project for the web.

Will the exported excel have information of lead-lag?

Yes, the exported excel will preserve lead-lag.

How do I know which dependency to use when?

You can learn more here Advanced Task Dependencies in Project for the web - Microsoft Community Hub.

Catch up after your week off with task history in Microsoft Project for the web.

AlexanderLahuerta — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 17:02:28 GMT

Introduction

The new task history feature in Microsoft Project for the web helps task owners stay on top of their tasks and quickly identify recent progress that has been made or changes that have impacted the schedule. Edits to tasks such as adding or removing labels, changing the duration, or changes to other tasks that affect the schedule of work all appear in the new Changes pane in Task Details. It is rolling out now, and will be available world-wide over the next few days.

Watch this 2-minute demo for a quick overview.

Getting Started

Task history is available to all users in Project for the web who have a Project Plan 3 or greater license.

First open a project at Project Home or in a Project tab in Microsoft Teams.
Open task details for any task. It can be reached by clicking the task details in the task grid, or by clicking a task card in the board view.

In the corner of task details, there is a new task history icon. Click it to open the changes pane.

Details about the recorded changes

All the changes a user makes to a task are recorded in task history. For each edit, details are shown such as who made the change, when they made it, what property was changed, the previous value, and the new value.

Changes that are recorded include edits such as

Adding or removing labels
Changing the duration or effort
Editing checklists
Adding or removing attachments
Edits to any custom columns

Changes made to other tasks that impact the selected task

Project for the web makes it easy to track tasks and identify dependencies. Dependencies between tasks means it is crucial for task owners to understand how changes across the project impacts their work. Task history makes it easy to identify these changes and stay on track. Changes made to other tasks that impact either the start date or finish date of the selected task have a history record that shows high-level information about the edit.

In the example shown below, Allan Smith edited the duration of a related task called “Kick-off budgeting.” This edit impacted the start date of the currently selected task.

Navigating to related task edits

Clicking the task title for these changes takes you to the related task and highlights the relevant edit. In this example, clicking the task title of the previously shown change record opens the “Kick-off budgeting” task and highlights the change in duration.

Pressing the browser back button or pressing the back button in Teams returns to the previously selected task.

Pro-tip: use task history with task conversations to stay on track

Task history pairs perfectly with task conversations to enable in-context chat about changes to tasks. For projects that have been pinned in Teams channels, the bottom of the task details pane includes a task conversation button. Pressing it opens the conversation pane.

Chats in this pane automatically include a link to the task to help everyone quickly get to a shared context. More information about task conversations can be found at the Microsoft support page for them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why don’t I see the task history button?
Task History is only available to users with a Project Plan 3 or greater license. If the icon doesn’t appear in task details, work with your Administrator to verify the license that is assigned to you. Also, it is not yet available in GCC.

Will edits made by users without a Project Plan 3 license be shown in the Changes pane?
Yes. Edits made by all users, regardless of their license, will appear in the changes pane. Only users with a Project Plan 3 or greater license will be able to open the changes pane to view these edits.

Is task history available in Planner?
No. Task history -along with other powerful features such as custom columns and the timeline view- helps to give teams with more sophisticated project management requirements the tools they need to keep their projects on track. These features can all be found in Project for the web.

Can my team build Power BI reports using Task History data?
Yes. Task history data is stored in Microsoft Dataverse and can be queried using Power BI. Learn more about the schema by visiting our support page.

Do edits to tasks using the Project scheduling APIs appear in task history?
No. Only edits to tasks made using the grid, board, or timeline views appear in the Changes pane.

My team uses Project in Power Apps, do edits made in that context appear in task history?
Edits made in the grid, board, and timeline views appear in Task History. Any edits to tasks using Power Apps forms as well as any edits to columns added to tables in Dataverse are not shown in task history.

My team has customized Project in Power Apps, will task history work in our environment?

Yes, but your administrator needs to ensure that they are validating their customizations with the latest release, including any customization of security roles in Dataverse.

Summer 2023 updates: What’s new and coming soon in Microsoft Project for the web

SakshiB — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 19:10:25 GMT

The Microsoft Project team is excited to share a summer round up of updates for Microsoft Project, including much-anticipated features such as task history and access to custom environment projects in Microsoft Teams.

TLDR: Head over to the Microsoft Project playlist on YouTube for a host of new features that have been rolling out to Microsoft Project, including setting goals, integrations with Viva Goals, task history and more! Be sure to bookmark the playlist as we’ll be adding new videos over the summer!

Read on to dive deeper into these new features across task management and enterprise-ready project management.

Project and task management

Make your day-to-day task and project management easier, especially as you align and optimize for key business priorities.

Task history: Need to quickly catch up after your week off? There is a new feature coming to Project in August that will help you do just that. Identify recent progress or changes to your tasks more easily in the Changes pane. There you will find a list of edits such as changes to task properties, added or removed attachments, and changes to other tasks that impact the schedule of your work.

New agile template: Whether you are looking to create an agile project or become more familiar with the sprints feature, the new Sprint Planning template can help you get started. This new template is available now.

Access custom environment projects in Microsoft Teams: Provide easier access to custom environment projects by adding them in your Microsoft Teams channel with this feature that started rolling out in June 2023. This new feature allows users to add projects from all environments directly in Teams channels. By clicking on “Projects” in the “+” menu within a Teams channel, users will see a complete list of projects associated with that specific channel, along with the corresponding environment names displayed on the right side of the pop-up. (as shown below)

Goal-setting with Microsoft Project

With Microsoft Project, you get everything you need to manage your most complex projects and initiatives and adapt quickly to changing business demands. New features available this summer include the ability to set goals for your project, a feature we have heard from many customers as critical to their project management needs, and to align to organizational Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

Goals in Project: Setting goals for your project is crucial for creating alignment within your team and among stakeholders to ensure that everyone knows what work is most important and how it is being prioritized. Now you can drive more alignment with your team and stakeholders and help prioritize work by tracking goals. The new Goals in Microsoft Project feature, which began rolling out in June 2023, allows you to easily set and track goals for your project, and even link them to tasks within your project to ensure that the work you have defined aligns with your goals.

Integration of Project in Viva Goals: Track progress on OKRs and the projects that align to them by leveraging the Project for the web integration with Viva Goals that started rolling out in June 2023.

Try out Project for the web: Liked what you read and want to try Project? Head over to https://aka.ms/tryprojectnow to start a free 30-day trial.

Stay up to date with new features coming to Planner and Project via the Microsoft 365 Roadmap.

Goals in Project for the web

Microsoft Project Team — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 22:32:43 GMT

Setting goals for your project is crucial for creating alignment within your team and among stakeholders to ensure that everyone knows what top work is most important and how it is being prioritized. The new Goals in Microsoft Project feature allows you to easily set and track goals for your project, and even link them to tasks within your project to ensure that the work you have defined aligns with your goals.

How to Access Goals

To get started, navigate to Goals view in your Project by selecting Goals in the header.

Here, you can add goals by clicking on the “Add goal” button and adding some initial details, like the goal title, end date, status, and a unique color.

Once you have your goals defined, you can add additional details by clicking into a goal and adding a description, start date, and priority.

To help track progress towards reaching your goal and ensure that you have the right amount and type of investment towards each, you can link related tasks to your goals. This will help you track if any goals are at risk due to tasks that are falling behind, see where investment is needed, and help bring clarity to the team about how their work is helping to achieve a wider goal.

Goals in Other Views

Board View

In the Board view, you can group by goal to see how tasks are distributed among goals and see if there are any tasks that are not helping to achieve your set goals. From here you can redistribute tasks, add new tasks to goals, and even make edits to the goals themselves by clicking on their title.

You can also filter by goal in the Board view to see a subset of tasks that are aligned to your goal of focus.

People View

In the People view, you can also group or filter by goal. This allows you to see who is responsible for achieving which goals, so you know who to follow up with if there are questions about the state of a goal.

You can also filter by goal in the People view to see a subset of tasks that are aligned to your goal of focus.

Grid View

In the Grid view, you can add a Goal column to easily see which goal a task is linked to. You can also filter by goal to see a subset of tasks that are aligned to your goal of focus.

Charts View

In the Charts view, you can filter by Goal to see analytics of how tasks working toward your goal of focus are burning down. This is especially helpful to get a quick understanding of the state of a goal.

Coming Soon: Viva Goals in Project for the web

With Viva Goals, organizations can set clear goals based on strategic priorities to improve clarity and focus. Soon, you will be able to create and align strategic goals from Viva Goals with execution in Project for the web. After you align a project to OKRs in Viva Goals , you will be able to track progress automatically in Viva Goals so your stakeholders are kept informed while ensuring your team has context of the bigger picture as they complete work in Project for the web.

FAQs:

Who can view, create, and edit my project’s goals?

Users with a Project Plan 1, 3, or 5 license can view, create, and edit goals within a project. Users with only an M365 license who are invited to your project will be unable to see or interact with your goals in any way.

Is there a limit to how many goals I can create?

Each project is limited to 10 goals. This limit is created intentionally to encourage best practices for creating goals, where each project has a limited set of objectives that it is looking to achieve. Setting too many goals is overwhelming and often unachievable; limiting your project to 3-5 well scoped goals ensures the highest level of focus to drive success for your project.

Which tasks can I link to goals?

Any task which is not a summary task can be linked to a goal. Additionally, each task can only be linked to one goal at a time.

Auditing capabilities coming to Microsoft Project, Microsoft Planner, and Microsoft To Do

AlexanderLahuerta — Mon, 12 May 2025 13:03:05 GMT

Microsoft 365 auditing capabilities can help you track the types of operations performed within and by your Microsoft 365 services and give you a better picture of the most common activities across your environment. Users in your organization can use the audit log search tool to search for, view, and export (to a CSV file) the audit records for these operations. Thousands of user and admin operations performed in dozens of Microsoft 365 services and solutions are captured, recorded, and retained in your organization's unified audit log. A complete list of audited activities is available at Search the audit log in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.

These capabilities will also be available for events and activities in Project for the web, Planner and Microsoft To Do, allowing organizations to better identify data risks and manage regulatory compliance requirements associated with events and activities in these services. Learn more below about how to use these capabilities in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal and the licensing requirements to enable them in your organization.

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: auditing for Project for the web, Planner and Microsoft To Do

The audit log for Project for the web, Planner and Microsoft To Do can help your organization investigate events, suspicious activity or malicious changes with audit log retention and provides access to crucial events that help determine the scope of compromise while using these services. You can use the audit log search tool in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal to search the unified audit log to view user and administrator activity in multiple Microsoft 365 services.

Using the audit log search tool for Project for the web, Planner and Microsoft To Do:

Go to https://compliance.microsoft.com and sign into the Microsoft compliance portal.
Start a new search in the unified audit log. You can choose to search by activity, record type or workload.

For example, in the workload dropdown, you can search for Project for the web, Planner and Microsoft To Do.

Visual showing a new search by activity, record or workload in the unified audit log.

Audit log for Project for the web

Project for the web is built on the Microsoft Dataverse and has an associated Project Power App. To enable auditing for scenarios where the user is using the Microsoft Dataverse or the Project Power App, see the System Settings Auditing tab guidance. For a list of entities related to Project for the web, see the Export user data from Project for the web guidance.

Activities captured for Project for the web include creation, deletion, access or updates to a task, project, roadmap, or roadmap item, and more. These capabilities will start rolling out June 8, 2023.

Review the full list of Project for the web user and admin activities logged for auditing.

Visual showing the option to choose a specific record type such as ProjectForTheWebProject, ProjectForTheWebRoadmap and others.

Audit log for Planner

The new auditing capabilities capture activities in Planner that include read, created, modified, copied or deleted for a plan, task or roster, and also, capture record types such as PlannerTask, PlannerPlan PlannerCopyPlan . These capabilities started rolling out at the end of May 2023.

You can review the full list of Planner user and admin activities logged for auditing and the Planner schema.

Visual showing the option to choose a specific record type such as PlannerPlanList, PlannerRoster, PlannerTask and more.

Audit log for Microsoft To Do

Activities captured for audit from Microsoft To Do include create, update or delete actions related to tasks, sub tasks, linked entities and attachments, and more. These will start rolling out June 12, 2023.

Review the full list of Microsoft To Do user and admin activities logged for auditing.

Visual showing the option to choose a specific Microsoft To Do activity type such as Read Task, Read Task List, and others.

Licensing requirements

Auditing events and activities for Project for the web, Planner and Microsoft To Do requires the relevant Microsoft 365 license that includes entitlement to Audit (Standard).

Learn more:

User and admin activities in Project for the web
User and admin activities in Planner
User and admin activities in Microsoft To Do
Purchase Project for the web to enable auditing capabilities for users within your organization

The Microsoft 365 Roadmap is where you can get the latest updates on productivity apps and intelligent cloud services. The roadmap ID for this feature is 124916. Check out other features that are in development or coming soon on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap.

This blog has been updated to reflect a change in licensing requirements.

Microsoft Project and Planner Ask Me Anything on TechCommunity - Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Microsoft Project Team — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 18:36:38 GMT

Join us for a Microsoft Project and Planner Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA) event on Wednesday, May 10^th, 9:00am – 10:30am PT where you can learn about new and upcoming features for Project for the web, Planner, and Tasks that can help you run projects more efficiently for successful delivery and engage with product experts.

Get up to speed on the latest product updates while engaging with the product teams

During the 90-minute AMA event, engage with experts from the product teams: view demos on new and upcoming features, participate in the live Q&A by asking questions on what you see, and provide feedback.

Add this event to your calendar today

Whether you are just getting started with Project for the web, Planner, or Tasks or a veteran with many years of project or task management experience, this event is for you. RSVP today so you can better deliver results and stay organized across projects of varying complexity with Microsoft’s connected project experiences. The Microsoft Project and Planner AMA event details are:

Wednesday, May 10, 2023 | 9:00am – 10:30am PT

View and RSVP on the AMA event page

Add AMA event to your calendar

Advanced Task Dependencies in Project for the web

Microsoft Project Team — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 15:14:44 GMT

Available now, you can link tasks within a project using advanced dependency types such as Start-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish, Start-to-Finish, and of course the default Finish-to-Start which is already available. For the uninitiated, dependency types let you link task start and end dates as dependent on any of the other task’s start or end in the project.

Accessing Dependencies

You can access dependency settings in the Grid view under columns “Depends On” and “Dependents (after)”.

You can also visualize advanced dependencies in your Timeline view.

Dependencies can also be added or edited in the “Add dependency” section of the task details editor.

All users of Project for the web can create the default: Finish-to-Start dependency. However, only Plan 3 and Plan 5 users can create advanced dependencies (SS, FF, SF). Plan 1 users will be able to view advanced dependencies on tasks in Grid/Timeline view but not create them.

How to use Dependencies

Read through for a quick guide on how to use dependencies in your Project:

Consider two tasks, A and B. When linking the two tasks with dependencies, we will consider task A as the predecessor and task B as the successor in the link, and what this means is that the start/finish of task B depends on the start/finish of task A in each of the following link types. Another way to say this would be that the task whose events occur prior (or is the trigger for the next task) is called the predecessor (task A). While the task who’s start or finishes occurs because of the trigger is called the successor (task B).

Finish-to-Start (FS)

As the default dependency, Task B (successor) can start only after the finish of task A (predecessor) e.g., when putting up a wallpaper, applying glue to the wallpaper (task A) has to Finish, to Start applying wallpaper (task B) to the wall.

Start-to-Start (SS)

Task B (successor) can start only with or after the start of task A (predecessor) e.g., A farmer can Start sowing seeds (task B) as soon as he Starts to plough the land (task A).

Finish-to-Finish (FF)

Task B (successor) can finish only after the finish of task A (predecessor) e.g., While processing a claim for car insurance, claim filing and document processing (task B) can happen in parallel to the vehicle inspection by the insurance inspector, but the claim process can successfully finish only after finishing the inspection of the damaged car (task A) as the status of the claim processing is dependent on the output of the inspection.

Start-to-Finish (SF)

Task B (successor) can finish only after the start task A (predecessor) e.g., Border patrol by squad A during the day shift can end only after the start of the border patrol by squad B during the night shift, as the border cannot be left unguarded. This type of dependency is also commonly used for creating a work-back structure where the project schedule is constructed backwards from the project end date goal.

FAQs:

Will importing an MPP from the Project desktop to Project for the web preserve dependencies?

Yes, the import from the MPP option in Project for the web will allow the import of dependencies from the original project into Project for the web.

Is lead/lag available?

Our plan is to make the setting of a lead or lag available soon.

We want to hear your ideas and suggestion on other ways we can help you and your team organize and stay on top of work in Project. Please feel free to post a comment below or submit any feedback directly through our feedback portal. And keep visiting our Tech Community Blog for all the latest Project news.

Manage your resource’s efforts with the new Assignments view!

Microsoft Project Team — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 17:18:26 GMT

When a Project Manager develops a resource-loaded work-back structure (WBS), the linear distribution of effort between resources is typically acceptable as a starting point to estimate effort and costs. However, there are scenarios where a PM will need to be more granular in the definition of effort within a given time span for each resource (day, week, month) to reflect how the work will be accurately executed.

This precision influences two key components of the project planning: Resource Requirements and Financial estimates – which can be achieved with assignments tab. To access the contour editing grid, the project manager first selects the Tasks tab on the project main page and then selects the Assignments tab.

When the grid is initially rendered, it starts at the earliest assignment contour. If your schedule doesn't contain any assignments that have effort, the grid will be blank and won't render anything. The minimum value of a resource contour is zero, and the maximum value permitted is 9,999,999.

How to access?

Once you have created a new project and assigned the tasks to team members, Click on the three dots, “…” -> Assignments.

Unlike in the Grid view, columns aren't configurable. The only visible columns are: Assigned To, Task Name, Assignment Start and Finish date.
Supports two methods for grouping: Group by Resource and Group by Task.
Two views to update the efforts required: Weekly and Daily.

How to update task effort assigned to resources:

By default, when resources are assigned to a task in the schedule, their effort is linearly distributed to each resource, based upon that resource's working hours and the project's schedule mode.

A project manager can use the resource assignment grid to refine the effort estimates of each resource that's assigned to one or many tasks across the different time scales. This feature helps project managers produce more accurate cost and sales estimates, which are driven by the resource assignment contours that are generated when a resource is assigned to a task. Additionally, project managers can easily reflect the resource demand that's required to build the demand in a resource requirement.

View effort distribution of a resource across tasks and timeline (Grouped by Resource)
Updating efforts required for a task (Grouped by Task)

Resource calendars

The ability to edit a contour for a specific day is governed by the resource's working days, as reflected in their calendar. If a cell is disabled for a given resource, that resource doesn't have working days during that period.

A resource's contours can extend beyond the assigned task's current start and end dates. If a contour is updated so that it's after the latest end date of a task or the earliest start date of a task, the task's end date or start date will be changed as appropriate. However, if a contour is updated so that it's earlier than the start date of a task that's linked to a predecessor, the update will fail because the assignment will trigger the task to start before its predecessor is completed, and that behavior isn't currently supported.

Co-authoring

Changes to the resource assignment grid are automatically reflected in any associated views, including the Chart, Timeline, Board, and Grid views. If multiple users are reviewing the project at the same time, any changes that one user makes will be reflected in the grid. Conversely, any changes that are made in the resource assignment grid will be shown to all other users who are viewing the project in the same session.

February Update Blog

Microsoft Project Team — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 23:54:57 GMT

Hello from the Project Team! The February updates for Project for the web are as follows:

New Features

Extended Timeline Zoom ~ Get a more complete picture of your long-term project in the Timeline view by using 4 new zoom scale options.
Custom Working Calendars ~ Set your team’s custom work week directly in Project for the web.

Upcoming Features

Advanced Dependencies ~ Set non-default dependencies between tasks such as Start-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish and Start-to-Finish dependencies.
Assigned to Me ~ View and update project tasks assigned to you in the “Assigned to me” tab in Planner, Tasks in Teams, and To Do.

Custom working calendars in Project for the web

Microsoft Project Team — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 02:57:27 GMT

If you have either Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5 subscriptions, you can create custom work week calendars for each project directly in Project for the web.

Each project is created using a default work template, which is based on the typical Monday through Friday work week. However, not all teams follow this traditional work week and need a way to schedule their tasks based on their own unique availability. With Custom Calendars, you can select which days are a part of your work week, and the Project scheduling engine will automatically update the project to only schedule work on those days.

Setting a Custom Calendar

To set up a custom calendar for your project:

Click on your project's title to open the settings pane. (An example of the project title is "Marketing Campaign" toward the upper left-hand corner within the image below.)

Under Calendar Settings, select Custom default work week. This will bring up toggle buttons for each day of the week with Monday through Friday selected by default.

Toggle on the days to include in your work week, and toggle off the others.
Hit Apply and your project will automatically update to show the new execution dates.

In the example above, you can update the project calendar to use Monday through Thursday as the established work week. When applying these changes, you can see the project’s Finish date pushed from November 2, 2023 to January 15, 2024. The timeline for the project also is updated to show Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as non-working days and extends the tasks accordingly.

Using Resource Calendars

If you have resource calendars set up for your team, you can use those in conjunction with your project’s custom calendar. At the bottom of the project settings pane is a Resource calendars checkbox. If you would like your custom project calendar to override any resource calendars that may be associated with this project, uncheck the box. Otherwise, if the box is checked, all resource calendars will be applied to their respective resources.

Let’s look at an example:

Resource Nancy has a resource calendar set up which specifies her working hours as Monday through Wednesday.
Project Marketing Campaign has a custom calendar set up which specifies working days as Monday through Thursday.
If the Resource calendar box is checked, all of Nancy’s tasks will only be scheduled for Monday through Wednesday, based on her unique resource calendar. All other team members will have their work scheduled Monday through Thursday, based on the Project’s custom calendar.
If the Resource calendar box is unchecked, all tasks will schedule work Monday through Thursday, based on the Project’s custom calendar only. All resource calendars associated with team members will not be considered.

For more information about how to set up and use resource calendars, check out Resource Calendars in Project for the web - Microsoft Community Hub

Frequently Asked Questions

Who can edit a project’s calendar?

Any member of a project who has a Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5 subscription can edit the working days of a project. Those who have only a Microsoft 365 or Plan 1 subscription will be able to see the current set work week but will not be able to make any changes.

Can I edit my team’s resource calendars directly in my Project?

No, resource calendars must still be edited in Power Apps. To learn more about how to do this, please check out Resource Calendars in Project for the web - Microsoft Community Hub.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on other ways we can help you and your team organize and stay on top of work in Project. Please feel free to post a comment below or submit any feedback directly through our feedback portal. And keep visiting our Tech Community Blog for all the latest Project news. 

January Update Blog

Microsoft Project Team — Sat, 04 Feb 2023 00:19:25 GMT

Hello from the Project Team! The January updates for Project for the Web are as follows:

New Features

Grid Conditional Coloring ~ Create rules on various project fields to visually highlight patterns in the project data.
Increased Taks Limit ~ Create up to 1,000 tasks within a single project

Upcoming Features

Extended Timeline Zoom ~ Get a more complete picture of your long-term project in the Timeline view by using 4 new zoom scale options.
Advanced Dependencies ~ Set non-default dependencies between tasks such as Start-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish and Start-to-Finish dependencies.
Assigned to Me ~ View and update Project tasks assigned to you in the “Assigned to me” tab in Planner, Tasks in Teams, and To Do.

December Update Blog

Microsoft Project Team — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 20:42:38 GMT

Happy New Year from the Project team! With the holiday season coming to a close, the January update will return to the normal rhythm.

The December updates for Project for the Web are as follows:

Upcoming Features

Extended Timeline Zoom ~ Get a more complete picture of your long-term project in the Timeline view by using 4 new zoom scale options.
Grid Conditional Coloring ~ Create rules on various project fields to visually highlight patterns in the project data.
Increased Taks Limit ~ Create up to 1,000 tasks in a single project.
Advanced Dependencies ~ Set non-default dependencies between tasks such as Start-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish and Start-to-Finish dependencies.

November Update Blog

Microsoft Project Team — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 19:03:42 GMT

After a slew of Ignite announcements last month, it’s time to get back into the regular rhythm of monthly updates.

The updates for Project for the Web are as follows:

New Features Now Available

People View ~ See the work allocation across your team and balance workloads easily.

API Support for Editing Contours ~ Enables developers to programmatically specify a task assignee's effort across any supported date range for more granular project planning.
Sprints ~ Create and prioritize tasks in their backlogs, define sprints and their date boundaries, move tasks between sprints and their respective backlogs, and then build reports to include that data.

Upcoming Features

Grid Conditional Coloring ~ Make your Project experience more visual by configuring rules on various project fields that color the grid cells based on the data within them.
Extended Timeline Zoom ~ Get a more complete picture of your project in the Timeline view by using new zoom scale options.

Microsoft Project at Ignite 2022: Announcing Goals, Agile Support, Assigned to Me, and More

Microsoft Project Team — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 20:48:41 GMT

We are pleased to announce today the latest features for Microsoft Project, specifically Project for the web, that will enable your teams to track goals, manage tasks better, leverage agile support for your projects, balance team workloads, enable Planner users to try and buy Project, and more.

Get the latest below! Also, the Ignite 2022 on-demand session that includes Project for the web: Enhance a new way of work with Microsoft 365 is live now!

Tracking goals to drive success

The Viva Goals team announced on September 22, 2022 a new integration with both Project for the web and Microsoft Planner. This capability helps teams align their work to the organization's strategic priorities through Objective and Key Results (OKRs) while increasing visibility across projects for stakeholders.

Similarly, Goals in Project for the web can help your team set goals at the project level to track progress and ensure they are taking on the right set of tasks or activities that drive the most impact.

Project tasks included in Assigned to Me list

As a highly requested feature for Project for the web, Assigned to Me will be rolling out in the next couple of months. You can easily review your Project tasks along with all your other tasks in the Assigned to Me list, which is included in the Tasks in Teams, Planner, and ToDo apps.

Managing projects with agility

Agile support in Project for the web will enable you to plan, prioritize, and schedule the Backlog of tasks into time-boxed blocks of Sprints. It’s as easy as dragging and dropping tasks to the appropriate sprint, stack-ranking the work, and then assigning tasks to the relevant team members.

For more information, read the “Agile project management: Sprints in Project for the web” article

Easy, visual way to manage team workloads

People view gives you quick visibility into the allocation of the work across the team and allows for easy task reassignment to balance workloads. This capability has rolled out quite recently and joins the other views of Grid, Board, Timeline, and Charts.

Read the “Manage your team members workloads with the new People view!” article.

Better task management

Task history in Project for the web provides visibility into the past changes of a task that help highlight the impact to a project.

Project management enhancements

For those of you familiar with Project, advanced dependencies will be rolling out in Project for the web to manage those task relationships requiring start-start, finish-finish, and finish-start in addition to start-finish.

With the increase of task limits, plans built in Project for the web can scale up to 1,000 tasks to take on those larger projects.

Planner to Project experience

During Ignite last year, the Planner and Project teams posted a blog about aligning the two apps to have a more seamless way to work between them. Many of the popular features of Planner in Microsoft Teams such as checklists, labels, Charts, and Priority fields are now in Project for the web. The next step of this alignment is providing the option to upgrade and move a Planner plan into Project – or begin a Project trial right within Planner. If you’re an IT admin, you can manage usage and trials through dashboards.

To learn more about upgrading from Planner to Project and the usage & trial dashboards, please read “Planner to Project experience: Try Project, import Planner plans, and monitor usage” article

Ignite 2022 activities

Be sure to check out the on-demand session that includes Project for the web: Enhance a new way of work with Microsoft 365.

Planner to Project experience: Try Project, import Planner plans, and monitor usage

Microsoft Project Team — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 16:00:11 GMT

The feedback from many of you indicates that your users are acquiring software that is often outside of the “officially supported” IT infrastructure you are maintaining – and it’s causing you headaches! In response, Microsoft is building a solution to give you a managed way for your users to discover and try new apps and features that quickly and easily meet their needs within the controlled and secure environment you provide.

Currently, Microsoft 365 users can use Microsoft Planner as a lightweight project management tool that enables better team productivity. However, as projects become more demanding with more moving parts, the next logical step up from Planner is to use Project for the web, which can handle this work. Project for the web delivers the top-requested capabilities from Planner users such as Timeline (Gantt chart), subtasks, advanced scheduling, and dependencies. Based on what you have told us, you desire a more seamless way to work between these two apps, and our goal is to enable ways to easily discover the value of Project and keep that flow of work going within the existing Microsoft 365 environment that you maintain.

To begin this enablement, you will see new features and capabilities roll out both for end users and IT admins in the coming months. Note that this is not available for Education and Government.

What end users can do

As your users’ project management needs grow beyond their existing tool, they can sign up for a free trial so they can test out Project for themselves and experience the value and productivity of this premium tool.

Your users will be able to use Project as if they were a paid subscriber. During or after the trial, they can send a request for a Project license to you as the administrator. Or they can choose the self-service purchase option if your organization allows it

Additionally, when Planner users sign up for a trial, they can try out Project on a copy of their actual Planner plan data. The original Planner plan and the continued collaboration around it remain unaffected.

What IT admins can do

To give you visibility and settings to manage your environment, you can leverage the following capabilities:

Admin controls for user access: You will have full control over user access to the self-service purchase process in discovering new product value.
- On a per product basis, the admin control provides the following options for users:
  - Full access to trials. Can acquire a paid license either via self-service purchase or the submission of a license request to the administrator.
  - Start an in-app trial and submit a request for a paid Project license.
  - Cannot start a trial but can submit a request for a paid Project license.
- This article covers how to configure this admin control: Manage self-service purchases (Admins) | Microsoft Learn
Visibility into trial licenses within your tenant: You can see all of your users’ trial subscriptions in two ways:
- In the Microsoft admin center on the Billing > Your Products view, you can see a list of subscriptions and then filter on “self-service” to see subscriptions owned by your users.
- On the Billing > Licenses page, you can see assigned licenses and also filter to self-service. You will see all the license requests your users have submitted by navigating to the “Requests” tab on the same page.
- You can reconfigure the request flow within the Microsoft admin center by adding a URL to redirect users to an internal site for license acquisitions.
License request notifications: As the administrator, you will be proactively notified about license requests, including the details on who is requesting licenses and for which products. You can assign either the requested paid license or an alternative paid license.
- This article covers the current behavior of the request workflow: Manage license requests | Microsoft Learn.

Your feedback continues to fuel these innovations in making it easier for you to manage your environment while providing the right kind of tools for your users. Looking forward, here’s what you can expect:

Improved product trial experiences for admins and software success roles: You will receive more information on new Microsoft 365 products that is tailored for you as the administrator and software adoption success roles. Our effort encompasses new usage and trial reporting on user experiences and product trial user data handling. Additionally, we plan to provide new rollout and management experiences for piloting Microsoft 365 products within your organization, including recommendations to try relevant products.
Admin trial usage dashboard: Today, the existing dashboard gives you visibility into the usage of Project within your organization. Paid and trial usage will be broken out in the dashboard so you can see aggregated views of usage and trends and drill down into user-level details as needed. Upcoming trial expirations will also be visible in the dashboard.
Request new license flow: As the administrator, you may not be directly involved with purchasing decisions. If users request licenses for products not available, our goal is to provide you with an easier way to share the license request information through email with others in your organization.

Agile project management: Sprints in Project for the web

Microsoft Project Team — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 18:01:33 GMT

As organizations and teams continue to work in a faster and more adaptive way, agile project management can help your team be more flexible while delivering value rapidly and incrementally—allowing for continuous learning and adjustments. Additional benefits of an agile project management approach include:

More focus on customers’ needs and expectations
Greater adaptability for unforeseen changes
Tighter collaboration and more opportunities for feedback

Agile support in Project for the web enables you and your teams to create and prioritize tasks in their backlogs, define sprints and their date boundaries, move tasks between sprints and their respective backlogs, and build reports that include this data.

Our new Sprints feature can help your teams get started with agile:

Project planning: Tasks that your team adds will automatically appear in the backlog if no sprint is specified, allowing for better planning.
Sprint planning: Use Group by > Sprint in the Board view to easily create and modify sprints as well as add tasks to sprints.
Standups: Use the Sprints filter in the People view to quickly see what the team is working on for the sprint and rebalance your team’s workload.
Sprint retrospective: Select Group by > Sprint in the Board view to see your team’s progress and remaining tasks to determine what went well and what could be improved.

To get started with Sprints:

Navigate to the Board view
Select Group by > Sprint

3. Rename and set dates on the default sprint, or build your own sprint

4. Create or drag tasks from the backlog into a sprint

a. Please note that sprint dates should not overlap with each other

b. You can also set the sprint of a task through the task's details

Integration with People view

Within the new People view, you can filter by Sprints to see only tasks in specific sprints.

See People view article to learn more.

FAQ

Q: What sprint will a task default to if I don’t create it in the Group by > Sprint view?

A: The task will default to the backlog.

Q: What happens if I delete a sprint?

A: The tasks in the sprint will be moved to the backlog.

Manage your team’s workloads with the new People view!

Microsoft Project Team — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 18:02:22 GMT

The new People view is now available for all Project users with a Project Plan 1 license and above!

Whether you are a people manager, project manager, or another kind of manager, use this view in your projects to:

Easily see each team member’s workload within your project
Determine if the workload of each team member is over or under relative to one another
Easily drag and drop tasks to reassign and update your team's tasks to balance out the work

To give this view a try, simply open a project and navigate to the new "People" tab in one of your projects.

Within People view, you can configure the new "View options" dialog on the header. For example, you can choose to show effort completed, remaining, and late in hours on the people cards, or choose to disable "Compact mode" to show all information on task cards just like in the Board view.

You can also choose to subgroup the tasks in this view by Bucket (default), Progress, Finish Date, Labels, and Priority to view the information organized in the way that is most relevant to you. Note: If you're using the Bucket subgrouping, don't forget to give your buckets some colors in the Board view to make it look as colorful as the images above!

For more information, please review the People view support article.