Exploring the Spectrum: What Does Microsoft Project Have to Offer?
In the previous article Microsoft Project Server End of Life Support | LinkedIn, the project server end of life support was discussed providing views from customers about upgrade or migrations. Let's today outline what are the current project management offerings from Microsoft.
- Office 365 Planner (Office 365)
- Project for Web (Dataverse application)
- Project Professional (Desktop Client)
- Project Online (SharePoint Application)
Microsoft Project Solution Offerings
There are other Microsoft task, work and project management solutions which can be listed but for this post, Project Online and Project for Web will be further highlighted due to the queries raised from customers across various industries which seems to be causing a bit of confusion.
Let's start with Microsoft Project Online…the 'older big brother' of Enterprise Project Management solutions which has evolved over time. Project Online is almost 99% the same in functionality as the current and previous versions of Project Server on-premises (2019 / 2021 Subscription) and is integrated to the SharePoint online application. Some features include "out of the box*" functionality, viz:
- Schedule Management, save and publish project schedules information bi-directionally using Microsoft Project Desktop
- Resource Management
- Project Prioritization
- Project Artefacts / Document Management
- Risk & Issue Management
- Integration to Power BI for reporting.
For more detailed features on Project Online and Project Server, you may review the solution guide outlined here as we won't unpack each and every functionality: Download PPM Solutions Guide from Official Microsoft Download Center. Take note this document was last published and updated in October 2013.
As stated in the earlier article, with the introduction of Project for the Web, Microsoft has indicated there would be no new investment in Project Server / Project Online Solution.
Project for the Web, the 'younger sibling' has caused confusion amongst users and organizations, which we hope to help resolve through these articles.
Project for the web is a new offering from Microsoft for cloud-based work and project management, providing simple task management capabilities. It's built on the Dataverse and extends to the Microsoft Power Platform, unlike Project Online which extends to SharePoint.
This is where Microsoft is now focusing its investment to bring feature parity to MS Project Desktop application and a few additional features not available in the MS Project desktop, viz. Project Goals, Viva Goals integration, etc.
The latest Project for the web features in development, released or included in the roadmap are specific to the new Project for the Web scheduling tool and can be viewed here: Microsoft 365 Roadmap | Microsoft 365 (Filter Product = Project).
Microsoft 365 Roadmap - Project
It should be noted that Project for the Web on its own is only a simple web-based scheduling application. Project for the Web cannot compare to Project Online, as it lacks the Enterprise capabilities which can only be made available with the extension and configuration to Microsoft Power Platform. This is based on the organizations scope of work / business requirements which would take time and effort to build, of which we find many organizations battle to articulate what that scope would entail.
'Out of the box', the Project for Web solution will NOT align 100% to any Enterprise project solution / feature requirement you as a customer / organization desire. Many customers have this 'out of the box' expectation that the solution will have all project functionality readily available and at a click of a button transform the organizations project management activities, prioritize project portfolios and provide resource planning views for example. The same customers who have this expectation are still using Excel and PowerPoint to manage large projects, don't have a complete scope and have no budget to engage...more to come on this topic.
I hope you now have a brief understanding of the solutions variances of each discussed at a very high level. In the upcoming article we will discuss the nuances identified with the term 'out of the box' (real life customer scenarios) and how best to get an Enterprise Project Management Solution from the new Project for Web solution and other options available which have become best practices.