Leaving Project Online: a practical migration checklist

Microsoft has announced the retirement of Project Online, and many PMOs are now asking the same question: where does our portfolio go next, and how do we move it without losing years of history?

Here is the checklist we use before any migration to a Dataverse-based PPM solution such as Kaizen PPM.

1. Inventory what you actually have

• Projects: active, closed and on-hold. How many are you really going to move?
• Enterprise custom fields and lookup tables: these often carry the most business logic, and the most clutter.
• Resource pool: named resources, generic roles, cost rates and calendars.
• Timesheets and actuals: decide how far back you really need them.
• Reports: list every Power BI or Excel report that reads from Project Online, because each one needs a new data source.

2. Decide what not to migrate

A migration is the cheapest moment you will ever have to clean up. Archive closed projects to a read-only export, drop custom fields nobody has filled in for a year, and merge duplicate resources.

Rule of thumb: if nobody can tell you what a field is for, it does not move.

3. Keep the lineage

Every migrated record should remember where it came from: its source system, original ID and when it last synced. That lets you reconcile counts, re-run a migration safely and answer audit questions later. Kaizen PPM’s data model carries these lineage fields on every migratable table for exactly this reason.

4. Move in waves

1. Reference data first: resources, calendars and lookups.
2. Then a pilot portfolio of 5–10 live projects with their schedules.
3. Then the remaining active projects.
4. Finally, history and actuals, if you still need them.

5. Re-point reporting and train people

The data being moved is only half the job. Rebuild your key reports on Dataverse, then run short role-based sessions for PMs, resource managers and executives.

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Planning a move? Talk to us. We will review your current setup and tell you honestly how big the job is.