Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project is Microsoft’s long-standing project and portfolio management product, available as both a desktop application and a cloud service. It is designed to help project managers and PMOs plan schedules, assign resources, track progress, manage costs, and analyze workloads across simple and highly complex projects.

In its cloud form, Microsoft Project is delivered through subscription plans (formerly Project Plan 1, 3, and 5, now aligned with Microsoft Planner premium plans). These subscriptions provide access to Project for the web capabilities alongside, in higher tiers, the Project Online desktop client and Project Online. Project for the web offers a modern, browser-based interface with Grid (list), Board (Kanban), and Timeline (Gantt-style) views so teams can switch between tabular task lists, visual boards, and schedule timelines depending on how they prefer to work. Classic Project desktop adds additional advanced views such as detailed Gantt charts, calendar views, network diagrams, and resource usage views for more granular control of complex schedules.

Core scheduling features include work breakdown structures with summary tasks and subtasks, robust task dependencies, constraints, lead and lag, critical path analysis, baselines, and customizable fields. This makes Microsoft Project suitable for detailed planning and ongoing schedule optimization in environments with many interdependent tasks. Roadmap and portfolio-level capabilities in higher-tier plans allow PMOs and senior stakeholders to visualize multiple projects on a single timeline and assess overall portfolio health.

Resource and cost management are major strengths of Microsoft Project. Resource pools, individual resource calendars, capacity planning tools, and visual heatmaps help organizations forecast and balance workloads across teams. Time tracking and timesheet submission in the Project Online ecosystem enable capture of actual work for billing, cost control, and variance analysis. Built-in reports and dashboards, along with Power BI templates and integration, provide flexible reporting on schedules, resources, and portfolios.

Because Microsoft Project is part of the broader Microsoft 365 ecosystem, it integrates with tools like Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Power Platform. Project for the web stores data in Dataverse, making it possible to extend solutions with Power Apps and automate workflows using Power Automate flows (for example, notifications, approvals, or custom integrations). Guest access and Microsoft 365 Groups-based permissions support collaboration with internal and external stakeholders while keeping control over who can view or edit projects.

In recent years, Microsoft has begun consolidating its work management tools by bringing Project for the web capabilities into the new Microsoft Planner experience. Existing premium Project plans continue to provide access to these capabilities while users are redirected to Planner endpoints for the web interface. The classic Project desktop client and Project Online remain available for organizations that require deep scheduling, on-premises options, or advanced portfolio management, but the overall direction of the platform is toward a unified Planner-based experience anchored in Microsoft 365.

Overall, Microsoft Project is best suited to experienced project managers and PMOs in organizations that need detailed scheduling, resource management, and portfolio-level oversight, and that are already invested in Microsoft 365 infrastructure.

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