Project Online Is Retiring – What Does It Mean and How Should You Prepare?
📅 Mark your calendar: Microsoft will retire Project Online on September 30, 2026, and sales will end on October 1, 2025. If you're responsible for project or portfolio management, now is the time to understand what this means and how to prepare. This isn’t just a product sunset—it’s a signal of where project and portfolio management is headed.
Why Is Microsoft Retiring Project Online?
Project Online has served organizations well for over a decade, but its architecture belongs to a different era. Microsoft is now focusing its innovation on Microsoft 365, the Power Platform, and Copilot. These platforms enable AI-powered collaboration, automation, and scalability—capabilities that Project Online simply can’t deliver at scale.
The message is clear: the future of project and portfolio management is cloud-native, integrated, and intelligent.
What Does This Mean for You?
If you're currently using Project Online, you still have time—but the clock is ticking. Your environment will remain operational until September 2026, but now is the perfect moment to rethink your approach to portfolio management—not just replace a tool.
Many organizations are asking the same question:
How can we transition from Project Online as smoothly and strategically as possible?
How can we transition from Project Online as smoothly and strategically as possible?
Below, we outline the key options for replacing Project Online. While change can feel daunting, it’s also an opportunity to pause and rethink how your organization manages projects, portfolios, and strategic initiatives in an era where agility, transparency, and AI-driven insights are more critical than ever.
🔍 What Is Microsoft Offering as a Replacement?
Microsoft has published a clear roadmap for retiring Project Online. The main alternatives include:
- Planner Premium service packages
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations
These solutions work well for organizations with basic portfolio management needs. However, they are not true portfolio management tools. They’re best suited for companies with low project management maturity, focusing primarily on task tracking and execution.
For large enterprises—or any organization with mature project management practices and a need to manage complex portfolios tied to core business operations—these tools fall short. Instead, we recommend looking at professional-grade portfolio management solutions built on Microsoft technology. The most comprehensive among them is Projectum xPM.
🧩 The Challenges of Complex Organizations
For many large organizations, Project Online has been more than just a scheduling tool. It has served as a centralized platform for:
- Aligning strategic goals and projects (OKRs)
- Managing risks and compliance
- Leading product and R&D portfolios
- Tracking sustainability and ESG initiatives
- Supporting change management across business units
- Overseeing M&A portfolios
A direct move to Planner risks losing critical functionality, leading to fragmented systems, reduced transparency, and diminished control at the enterprise level.
Organizations managing complex project and portfolio environments should explore modern xPM (Anything Portfolio Management) solutions before making a final decision.
🚀 Projectum xPM – The Modern PMO Solution
Projectum xPM, developed by Projectum and delivered by Innofactor, is a modern portfolio management solution that offers far more comprehensive capabilities than Microsoft’s native alternatives.
xPM supports a wide range of portfolios—projects, enterprise risks, strategy, OKRs, ESG and compliance, marketing, M&A, product development, and more. It’s a scalable, AI-powered solution tailored to your organization’s needs.
Key features include:
- Power Platform-based architecture – Seamlessly integrates with Microsoft 365, Teams, and other familiar tools
- AI-enhanced management – Copilot accelerates decision-making and portfolio governance
- Enterprise-wide coverage – Supports not just projects and programs, but also strategy execution, ESG, risk management, innovation, and compliance
xPM is designed to work alongside the tools your teams already use—like Jira, DevOps, Asana, Trello, or even Planner—while providing a centralized view across all portfolios. It also enables efficient resource planning, roadmap development, scenario modeling, and time tracking.
📊 Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Planner Premium | xPM (Projectum & Innofactor) |
|---|---|---|
| Basic project planning | ✅ | ✅ |
| Portfolio-level management | Very limited | ✅ (enterprise-grade) |
| Strategic alignment (OKRs, roadmaps) | ❌ | ✅ |
| ESG and sustainability tracking | ❌ | ✅ |
| Risk and compliance management | ❌ | ✅ |
| AI-powered insights (Copilot) | Limited | ✅ Advanced |
| Flexibility and customization | Low | High |
🌍 Already Trusted by Global Enterprises – Scalable for SMBs Too
Leading global organizations have already modernized their project portfolio management with xPM. Innofactor has successfully delivered this solution to both large publicly listed companies and small to mid-sized businesses.
They’ve achieved:
- Greater transparency across portfolios
- Unified governance for strategy, risk, and ESG
- Faster decision-making with real-time data
- A future-proof platform that evolves with Microsoft technology
If you're curious about Projectum xPM, we invite you to join our upcoming webinar series. The first session on September 23, 2025, will explore the full potential of xPM.
🧭 Next Step: Book a Free Assessment and Ensure a Smooth Transition
If your organization is currently using Project Online, now is the time to prepare for what’s next.
Innofactor offers a free assessment and roadmap, where we review your current project and portfolio management setup and explore options for replacing your existing solution—whether it’s Microsoft Project Online or another standalone tool.
The assessment will help you:
- Identify risks and opportunities
- Discover the best-fit alternatives
- Build a clear transition plan
- Understand how AI can enhance your future portfolio management
👉 Book your free assessment today and ensure your transition from Project Online is smooth, strategic, and future-ready.
