The end of Project Online is September 2026, it’s time to act
There has been a lot of confusion and mixed messages about the future of Microsoft’s long-time project management tool, Project Online. We now have the official answer from Microsoft: Project Online is being retired on September 30, 2026.
Important note: This is end of life for the service and it will not be available for use or look-up after that date. It is critical to have all necessary data and projects backed up before this time as well as a replacement solution in place.
Critically, a 12-month transition window is not long, so you need to start your planning now, particularly if you want to set your organisation up with a robust PPM platform that gives you parity with Project Online and sets you up for the future.
This article will help you understand the current position. We need to look at this from the perspective of Project Online, as well as SharePoint, which is the platform it sits on, which has its own lifecycle, as well as any locally created solutions such as those for reporting that your vendor may have created for you.
Let’s begin with what we factually know about Project Online and the platforms that support and depend on it. There is a lot of rumour, and a lot of people burying their heads in the sand, but also a lot of people who have good ideas about the future. The question to ask as we review this is, how quickly can my organisation move and what are our PPM needs?
- Project Online ends on 30 September 2026. This is from Microsoft, not a rumour.
- Microsoft has not added new functionality to Project Online for over a decade and has stated in the past that all new development has gone into their new cloud-based project solution Planner Premium. This was announced as far back as 2019, and you can read about Planner here. This means that Project Online is not only coming to an end but is dated in functionality. It is in your best interests to look for something newer that can support you as you grow.
- Project Online is a SharePoint application so anything that gets turned off in SharePoint impacts Project Online. What no one may be telling you is that while Project Online’s end date is September 30, 2026, some of its underlying functionality ceases much earlier.
The first of these changes relates to workflows. With changes coming to SharePoint, your stage gate workflow may be impacted and no longer function. The piece of the workflow that is ending relates to access control and may also impact your reporting tool if you are using a vendor-built reporting solution for Project Online.
This workflow ends in early April 2026. This is a detailed technical change and does impact Project Online. You can read about it from Microsoft here: Azure ACS retirement in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn and in our article explaining it: The decommissioning of sharePoint workflows: What it means for Project Online – Sensei Project Solutions
- SharePoint 2013 workflow also ends in April 2026. If you are using the out of the box workflow this can impact you.
- If you have custom made SharePoint webparts, and they need ACS for authentication, they may stop working.
- Your reporting may end long before Project Online, again in April 2026. This is because reporting solutions like Sensei’s Reporting Hub use Azure ACS, which is in turn being ended.
- Project Online is old. And built on something older. We are talking 3 decades old. The world and project and portfolio management solutions have advanced significantly. Rather than looking for a straight replacement, you should consider taking advantage of what the future has to offer, particularly in the rapidly advancing age of AI.
The gold standard in scheduling – Microsoft Project Desktop. How will it be affected?
Microsoft has confirmed there will be no change to Project Desktop and it will continue to be available for all users. The issue becomes, if your people are using Microsoft Project Desktop as their preferred scheduling tool, you will need to replace Project Online with a PPM platform capable of surfacing your schedule information.
Pay close attention to what is offered as many PPM tools may be able to provide a one way or limited data flow from Project Desktop, but not the full synchronisation and unification of schedules that supports organisation-wide visibility and access.
For example, Altus provides a two-way, native integration to Microsoft Project Desktop, so you can consolidate portfolio views, synchronise data to create a single, global resource pool, update financial data and provide direct timesheet to schedule visibility.
Make sure you articulate your requirements for Project Desktop schedules when reviewing your transition needs.
The replacement from Microsoft for Project Online
But won’t Microsoft give me an upgrade path, and take care of the problem for me? This seems to be the unstated hope of many. The answer is, not really. Microsoft has made it clear since 2019 that they see the Power Platform and Planner Premium as the path forward. This means that you need to procure a Power Platform based solution or simply use Planner Premium. Since Planner Premium is not meant to be feature equivalent to Project Online, it usually means you need to procure a platform that is. In the Microsoft world this is something built by a Microsoft partner, such as Altus.
So don’t rely on a Microsoft path looking after you without having to do any work yourself. Microsoft has created the foundation and building blocks, and Microsoft partners have created solutions that far exceed what Project Online could do. It is up to you to move over, but as the platform is different it means some effort which you need to plan for now.
Aligning with the future
Modern PPM platforms give you access to future ready technology that sets you up for ongoing PPM maturity and success:
- The low-code features and flexibility of the Power Platform and ability to have a solution that more closely aligns to your needs.
- Being AI ready and using tools that AI can easily be added to.
- Taking advantage of Microsoft Copilot which is increasingly part of the Power Platform, and a strong drive from Microsoft.
The point is that it is worth investing your money into technology that will work for you now and in the future.
So, should you panic?
The fact is 12 months to replace an enterprise PPM platform is not a long time and do you need to get started now. Just how much you need to panic depends on:
- Do you use a reporting solution that sits on top of Project Online that itself uses SharePoint functionality that is coming to an end in April 2026? Replacing reporting solutions can be a significant effort, particularly if data migration decisions are involved.
- Are you comfortable leaving value on the table by not moving into a comprehensive solution with new features? How work is managed has moved on and AI enablement is a necessary consideration.
- How quickly can your organisation move on the procurement of a new PPM solution? There is work that needs to be done to identify requirements both current and future, and how you want to approach the transition.
What are the barriers?
Vendors are getting busier and busier as organisations are all facing the same end date issue, the first being April 2026, the next, and most critical, September 2026. It may be hard to get the help you need if you don’t engage now.
Let me point out the obvious. If you leave it too late there is no vendor who can save you. There is a physical and minimum duration of time needed to setup, enhance and migrate to a new solution. You need to work backwards from that to determine just how much you need to panic, if at all.
Want to have a conversation with one of our transition experts? Get in touch with us today!
