By now, you’ve probably heard that Microsoft Project Online is being retired. Officially going offline on 30 September 2026. If you’re a project manager, that’s not just a technology update. It’s a fork in the road.
The question isn’t simply “what do we replace it with?” The better question is: was Project Online really working for us in the first place?
For a lot of teams, the answer is complicated. It did the job. It was familiar. But familiarity and fit are very different things. Now that the conversation is open, there’s a real opportunity to land on something genuinely better, not just something adjacent.
At EastPoint, we sit on your side of the table and in this blog our aim is to discuss what’s actually happening with Project Online and where the path forward leads.
Project Online goes offline permanently on this date. Any data you have in Project Online will be deleted. When you factor in assessment, migration planning, data protection, and team training, the runway is shorter than you think.
Why Microsoft pulled the plug
Microsoft didn’t retire Project Online because they ran out of ideas for it. They retired it because the architecture itself was the problem. Built on legacy SharePoint workflows, the platform was fundamentally limited in what it could become. It couldn’t be evolved into the AI-powered, collaborative, modern experience that project managers are increasingly looking for.
And that’s their own assessment, not ours. If you’ve been living with Project Online, you’ll recognise the truth in it. The frustrations weren’t bugs, they were the product.
Licensing maze
Three pricing tiers, plus Power BI, Teams, Azure Boards, and SharePoint add-ons bought separately. Getting your whole team properly set up cost significantly more than the headline figure suggested.
Collaboration never solved
Moving between desktop client and the online environment wasn’t seamless — it was a workaround. Teams managed file versions more than they managed work.
Strategy was invisible
You could see tasks. You could see resources. What you couldn’t easily see was whether the work your team was doing was actually moving the business forward.
AI was nowhere
In a world where intelligent tooling is fast becoming the baseline expectation, Project Online had nothing to offer. In 2026, that’s not a minor gap — it’s a structural disadvantage.
The retirement announcement is disruptive. But the underlying story is that many teams have been making do with a tool that wasn’t ready for the future.
— EastPoint SolutionsThe path Microsoft suggests (and why it falls short)
Microsoft’s recommended path for most organisations is to migrate to Planner. And Planner is a fine tool. For simple task management, light team coordination, and straightforward work tracking, it does what it says.
However, if you’re running a PMO, managing multiple projects, coordinating resources, tracking budgets, and trying to connect delivery to strategy — Planner isn’t a step forward. It’s a step sideways. It lacks advanced scheduling, real portfolio-level governance, and the financial oversight that project managers responsible for large programmes genuinely need.
Microsoft’s successor works well for a certain type of task. It doesn’t work for organisations who require a strategic view over their entire portfolio. Those teams need something built for the way they actually work.
What actually works: Projectum xPM
This is where the path gets clearer. EastPoint has partnered with Projectum — an award-winning Microsoft PPM specialist. And together we’re bringing xPM to organisations who need a modern, strategic, and genuinely capable alternative to Project Online.
xPM is what portfolio management should look like in 2026 and beyond — built on Microsoft’s Power Platform, designed around best-practice PMO principles, and flexible enough to grow with your organisation rather than constrain it.
Everything connected to strategy
Strategic goals connect directly to the portfolio. The portfolio connects to programmes and projects. You can see — in real time — whether the work your team is doing is aligned to what the business is trying to achieve.
Portfolio management for real PMOs
Real-time oversight across all your projects, programmes, milestones, risks, and dependencies. Governance frameworks built in — not bolted on. Role-based dashboards that show people what they need to see.
Financial clarity across the portfolio
Budgets, forecasts, and spend across your entire portfolio — visible in real time, connected to the work itself. When the programme board asks, you’ll be answering from the platform, not a spreadsheet.
AI that does real work
Intelligent risk flagging, smart planning recommendations, automatic visualisations, and customisable AI chatbots — embedded in the parts of the workflow where project managers actually spend their time.
Implementation complexity is one of the most common reasons organisations stay on a failing tool too long. xPM’s preconfigured, best-practice setup means it can be rolled out rapidly to organisations.
The comparison, plainly
| Area | Project & Project Online Retiring | Projectum xPM Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Legacy SharePoint-based | Microsoft Power Platform — modern, cloud-native |
| Strategic alignment | Limited, requires customisation | Core feature — built in from day one |
| Portfolio management | Static views | Real-time, governance-enabled, dynamic |
| Financial tracking | Manual workarounds required | Integrated across the full portfolio |
| AI capabilities | None | Built in — risks, planning, chatbots |
| Implementation | Weeks to months | Quick Deployment in Standard Config. |
| Integrations | Primarily Microsoft stack | Teams, Power BI, DevOps, Jira and more |
| Future | Retiring September 2026 | Actively developed and invested in |
Don’t leave this until the last minute
September 2026 may feel like a comfortable distance away. It isn’t — not when you factor in the time needed to properly assess your options, plan a migration, protect your data, and train your team on a new platform.
The organisations that will navigate this transition well are the ones that start now. Not because they’re panicking, but because they’re pathfinders. They see what’s coming and they chart a course before the pressure builds.
With over three decades of delivering technology solutions across Ireland, we’ve built our reputation on getting in front of complexity rather than chasing it. We sit on your side of the table. We tell you honestly what we see. And we help you move forward with confidence — from assessment through to a fully live, supported platform.
Tús maith leath na hoibre.
A good start is half the work.
Let’s start well.
Reach out to the EastPoint team today to discuss your Project Online migration and what Projectum xPM can do for your PMO.
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