Microsoft's new Project service is now available worldwide
Windows 10
Microsoft Project has been in the midst of a major makeover for the past year or so. Today, October 29, Microsoft is announcing that the new Microsoft Project is generally available (except in France and South Korea for some reason). The rollout of the new Project kicked off in mid-October 2019, Microsoft officials said.
The new Project interface is designed to be simpler and cleaner. Microsoft tried to improve the way new members can be added to teams and for users to switch between grids, boards and/or timeline (Gantt) charts to track progress. Integrations with Microsoft Teams, Power BI, the Power Platform low-code/no-code tools and Office are built-in.
Microsoft also is adding a new plan to the Project line-up that it is calling Project Plan 1. Project Plan 1 is a combination of some of the Project Online Professional and Project Online Premium features. Microsoft also is renaming Project Online Professional "Project Plan 3" and Project Online Premium to "Project Plan 5." Both Project Plan 3 and 5 will include the Project Plan 1 capabilities, Microsoft officials said. Plan 1 is available for purchase starting today in the U.S. and by mid-November in other parts of the world.
Microsoft has been working to clean up its overlapping project-planning services for a while. Last year, Microsoft officials said that Dynamics 365 for Project Service's Automation (PSA) capabilities were being distributed between the new Project Service and Dynamics 365 for Sales offering. Word on the street at that time was PSA would be merged with Project Online to create the new Project service. At Ignite last year, Microsoft officials said the new Project service would take advantage of the Common Data Service platform.