Microsoft Project Online retires in September 2026. No extensions. No exceptions. Leaving organizations with a choice: wait until the deadline forces your hand, find the quickest feature-for-feature replacement, or use this moment to move to a platform built for how your portfolio actually operates today. The next few months will determine whether this becomes a strategic upgrade or a fight with software limitations.
For most organizations, feature parity sounds like the safe call. Find something that does what Project Online did and move on. The problem is that replicating Project Online’s capabilities means inheriting its limitations, and in the years since most organizations first deployed it, the way portfolios are managed has changed significantly. A one-for-one replacement isn’t an upgrade. It’s a lateral move with a migration cost attached.
The options that look obvious don’t solve it. Planner Premium is built for collaborative task management, not enterprise portfolio oversight. Custom builds can address specific needs but require ongoing IT maintenance that organizations consistently underestimate. Many third-party tools position themselves as replacements but weren’t designed to handle the complexity of a mature enterprise portfolio.
This session gives you a clear framework for evaluating what your portfolio actually needs now, not just what replaced what you had before.
What you’ll gain:
- Understand why feature parity is the wrong evaluation criteria for a platform you’ll rely on for years to come
- Learn why Planner Premium, in-house builds, and lightweight tools fall short for enterprise portfolios
- Evaluate platforms on native Microsoft integration versus API connections that require constant upkeep
- Assess which solutions have proven migration capabilities versus those that make it sound simple
- Walk away with a clear criteria set to make a confident, informed decision before time makes it for you
