Microsoft has confirmed that Project Online will be retired in September 2026.
Many organizations are now evaluating Microsoft Project Online replacements to ensure continuity and avoid disruption.
If your organization currently relies on Microsoft Project Online, you’re likely asking the same question many PMOs are asking us today: “What should we move to next?”
Over time, many organizations have built their way of planning, coordinating, and reporting work around Microsoft Project Online. In some environments, it has mainly supported project planning and task coordination. In others, it has also helped with resource alignment, budget visibility, approval workflows, and portfolio-level reporting.
Choosing a Microsoft Project Online Replacement Is About More Than Selecting a New Tool
The key consideration now is not simply which new platform to adopt.
It is about identifying what should remain in your current way of working — and where there may be an opportunity to strengthen visibility across initiatives, coordinate shared resources more effectively, and support decision-making with clearer and more connected data.
For many organizations, this naturally opens the door to looking beyond project delivery itself, and toward how work aligns with priorities, funding, and outcomes.
The right path forward depends on what your organization needs to support — whether it is primarily team-level coordination, or broader alignment across initiatives, people, and priorities.
Choosing the Right Path Depends on What You Need
Microsoft’s recommended migration paths — as well as other well-known collaborative project management tools in the market — are a good fit when the primary need is to:
- Coordinate work within individual teams.
- Track tasks, deadlines, and progress.
- Improve day-to-day collaboration.
If this reflects your environment, those tools may be the right next step.
However, if your organization needs to:
- Manage multiple initiatives running in parallel.
- Balance shared capacity across teams or departments.
- Prioritize work based on strategy, value, or funding.
- Provide leadership with reliable, consolidated visibility.
Then a different type of solution is required. This is where Clarity becomes relevant.
When Clarity Is the Right Microsoft Project Online Alternative
Clarity becomes relevant when the organization is managing multiple initiatives at the same time, and decisions depend on shared people, budgets, priorities, and outcomes.
At that point, the challenge is no longer only to track projects — it is to coordinate work, capacity, and strategy across the organization.
Clarity provides several capabilities that are not available in Microsoft’s recommended migration paths or in basic PPM/work management tools:
- Adapts to Your Ways of Working: Clarity supports your existing governance model, delivery approaches, and organizational culture — without requiring teams to change how they work or adopt new methodologies.
- One connected view of all work: Portfolios, programs, projects, and operational activities — visible and linked in one place.
- Strategic prioritization and funding alignment: Decide what matters most, allocate funding accordingly, and adapt as priorities change.
- Resource and capacity planning across teams: Understand real workload, constraints, and trade-offs when people support multiple initiatives.
- Consistent governance, adapted to your way of working: Establish clarity and decision flow without forcing process standardization
- Hybrid and agile coordination: Support teams working in different methods (traditional, agile, or hybrid), without requiring everyone to use the same tool.
- Scenario modeling for leadership decisions: Test alternatives, compare outcomes, and move forward confidently based on data.
- Secure enterprise-grade SaaS: A platform designed to scale, evolve, and continuously improve — with no infrastructure burden.
Clarity is a long-standing, enterprise-grade platform with a proven track record in large and complex organizations. It is consistently recognized by independent industry analysts such as Gartner, Forrester, and GigaOm for its depth in strategic portfolio management, resource and capacity planning, and enterprise scalability.
For reference, an overview of recent analyst recognition can be found here.
For organizations interested in evolving further, Clarity can also form the foundation of a broader ValueOps journey — progressively increasing visibility across initiatives, aligning business and delivery teams around shared priorities, and improving efficiency across value streams. This evolution can be done incrementally and at your own pace, without requiring disruptive change.
A Transition That Respects Your Pace
Moving from Microsoft Project Online to Clarity does not require a disruptive change.
- Project managers can continue using Microsoft Project Desktop, if it is part of your current workflow, thanks to Clarity’s native integration for schedule planning and updates.
- Existing portfolio structures and reporting practices can be replicated in Clarity, so you do not need to redesign how you work from the ground up.
- Project and resource data can be migrated safely, including historical information.
- New capabilities can be introduced step by step, at a pace that fits your teams.
This allows continuity, while creating space to strengthen alignment, visibility, and confidence in decision-making over time.
Migrating from Microsoft Project Online doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch
Tricise provides full support for a smooth and secure transition of historical data and configurations, leveraging Broadcom ConnectALL for data integration and synchronization.
Thanks to our proven and award-winning expertise, project and resource information — as well as key reporting data — can be efficiently transferred and restructured where needed, ensuring that essential historical context and insights are preserved.
This process is carefully managed by our experts to minimize disruption and enable a confident start with Clarity from day one.
Would You Like to Understand Whether Clarity Fits Your Scenario?
We offer a free, no-obligation consultation with our expert PPM/SPM consultants, focused on your specific context — not a generic demo.
During the session, we will work with you to:
- Understand how Microsoft Project Online is currently supporting your organization.
- Identify what should be preserved in your way of working.
- Explore where there may be an opportunity to strengthen visibility, coordination, or strategic alignment across initiatives.
- Discuss your possible evolution paths — whether gradual or more transformative.
- Clarify whether Clarity is the right fit (or not) for your scenario.
There is no commitment and no expectation to make a decision on the spot.
- No pressure.
- No assumptions.
- Just clarity and direction to help you make informed, confident decisions.
If now feels like the right moment to explore your options, we are ready to help. Contact our experts today.
