Overview
What is Microsoft Project?
Microsoft Project is a project management software. It provides core PM functionality, including agile workflow support and resource management. Project can be deployed in the cloud or on-premise.
App, Web, and Desktop Local Project Management
Business Problem: To record project progress quantitatively and time consumption by getting …
Planning is a breeze with Microsoft Project
Moved away but came right back!
The best software for managing large projects
Strong, established tool for traditional planning, need more for today's projects
Project lifecycle managed with Microsoft project.
The best project management solution hands down.
A Workhorse for Scheduling
Effectiveness in planning new projects.
MS Project great tool for dedicated PM, less useful for casual users
Microsoft Project review from scheduling and cost management standpoint
Very efficient corporate tool for companies with Microsoft based IT
Project planning and management at its best
Jiho's Microsoft Project Review on 2021/05/20
Awards
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Popular Features
- Gantt Charts (103)10.0100%
- Scheduling (105)9.999%
- Task Management (106)9.090%
- Resource Management (103)6.969%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
Project Plan 1
$10
Project Plan 3
$30
Project Plan 5
$55
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
Microsoft Project 2021 Overview And Features Walkthrough
Features
Project Management
Project management software provides capabilities to streamline management of complex projects through task management, team collaboration and workflow automation
- 9Task Management(106) Ratings
This includes the ability to plan, track, collaborate and report on tasks.
- 6.9Resource Management(103) Ratings
Resource management is workload planning to maximize resources.
- 10Gantt Charts(103) Ratings
Gantt charts are charts that show tasks or events along the y-axis displayed against time along the x-axis.
- 9.9Scheduling(105) Ratings
Scheduling capabilities allow users to set schedules on tasks, and create timelines and milestones.
- 8.5Workflow Automation(82) Ratings
Workflow automation is the ability to route work requests along an approval process automatically.
- 7.7Team Collaboration(95) Ratings
Team collaboration capabilities let team members work directly with each other and provide team updates.
- 7.6Support for Agile Methodology(79) Ratings
Agile is a time boxed, iterative approach to development that builds software incrementally instead of trying to deliver it all at once near the end.
- 8.2Support for Waterfall Methodology(79) Ratings
Waterfall methodology is a tradition development method that is linear and sequential.
- 7.2Document Management(76) Ratings
Document management provides for centralized management of all project documents.
- 6Email integration(81) Ratings
Email integration allows work requests to be made directly from email.
- 7.9Mobile Access(66) Ratings
Mobile access is the ability to access the software from a smartphone or tablet.
- 8.4Timesheet Tracking(72) Ratings
Timesheet tracking is the ability to track all billable and non-billable hours for each project.
- 8.4Change request and Case Management(62) Ratings
Change request and change management enables tracking of all customer requests including priority and timeframe.
- 6.3Budget and Expense Management(82) Ratings
Budget and expense management provides the capability to track all expenses by employee or department and link them back to department. It also enables hourly rates to be set.
Professional Services Automation
Features that support professional services organizations
- 7Quotes/estimates(53) Ratings
Ability to create, manage and send project fee proposals to customers
- 7Invoicing(44) Ratings
Ability to create, manage and send invoices to clients during or after completion of a project
- 6.9Project & financial reporting(73) Ratings
Ability to analyze project and financial data based on custom criteria to gather insights and improve business performance
- 6.9Integration with accounting software(49) Ratings
Real-time, two-way sync with accounting or financial software to facilitate project and financial reporting
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Microsoft Project?
Microsoft Project Integrations
Microsoft Project Competitors
Microsoft Project Technical Details
Deployment Types | On-premise |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Windows |
Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(691)Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 48)- Adding dependencies between tasks. MS Project allows 4 types of relationships to be built (SS, FS, SF, FF) and adding lag between tasks, so you have the ultimate flexibility to define how tasks are related.
- Once relationships are defined, MS Project does a good job to highlight/identify the critical path.
- If you put in the details (resource allocation, task priority), then resource leveling works well.
- Ability to select specific tasks or summary tasks for the timeline is good to give an overview of the project.
- Linking tasks between different MS Project files. It can be done, but it's hard to manage and easy to completely break the project plan. We've learned to save multiple versions of the plan in case an external link breaks the project catastrophically.
- Inability to look at resource loading over multiple projects or multiple project files. This has led us to link multiple files together as a mitigation, which has shortcomings (see above).
- Network diagram has improved in recent versions, but still limiting. I often use VISIO to create network diagrams instead of MS Project & end up duplicating information.
However, understand resource loading cannot be done or is not easy, especially if resources are on multiple projects (and multiple project files). MS Project is a static tool and doesn't offer much for collaboration. It is also not as tuned to Agile methodologies. When there are lags and the relationship between tasks is more complex, MS Project is unable to calculate critical path.
Project lifecycle managed with Microsoft project.
- project management
- Dependency tracking
- resource management
- task management
- reporting
- scheduling concerns
- UI could be improved
- Resource utilizations charts
- scope management
Effectiveness in planning new projects.
- I love the Gantt Chart that Microsoft Project offers me, because it provides me with a view from various aspects, it provides me with exact details about the fulfillment of tasks over a period of time, it also allows me to make comparisons with the necessary data and the fulfilled data. by the employees, in order to know exactly if the project's expectations have been met.
- I love the Gantt Chart that Microsoft Project offers me, because it provides me with a view from various aspects, it provides me with exact details about the fulfillment of tasks over a period of time, it also allows me to make comparisons with the necessary data and the fulfilled data by the employees, in order to know exactly if the project's expectations have been met.
- The alert system for the fulfillment and delay of assignments is perfect. Microsoft Project allows me to configure the task system, I can assign the necessary tasks to fulfill the project, and the software alerts me immediately if the managers are fulfilling the assignments.
- The main drawback encountered while using Microsoft Project is that it does not allow me to modify the template or the general user design. For me, the UI that this software has is quite simple, and I would like to apply different templates or modify the layout of my MS Project workspace, currently it is not possible.
- Sometimes the software crashes suddenly, throwing an error code, and the software closes immediately. This has happened to me when I am going through the detailed reports on my gantt chart, it is not something that affects me that much, but I think they should fix it.
- I have not had any other problems with Microsoft Project, it has been an exemplary software that has helped me to maintain a very good project planning in general.
After an experience with MS Project server that wasn't very successful, "traditional" MS Project helped PMs to manage plannings and shared resources.
- Gantt chart and tasks planning
- Tasks dependencies and delay impacts
- Shared resources management
- Project timeline visualisation
- Hidden costs can rise very quickly (licencing, training...)
- Not available inline and not included in Office 365
- Old fashioned and not intuitive to use
Project planning and management at its best
There are many Project Management software, tools, and services available. However, none can beat the planning or measurement against project baselines like Microsoft Project.
- Project planning
- Baseline measurement
- Resource allocation
- Useful report templates
- Geared towards waterfall projects
- Complicated to use/learn.
- Clunky interface for report creation & modification.
- Difficult to integrate with email and/or Sharepoint to send team alerts.
On the other hand, if you have a small software development project that is iterative or agile in nature, there are more suitable project management and collaboration tools out there.
Jiho's Microsoft Project Review on 2021/05/20
- Project/Task Management
- Schedule Management
- Charts
- Resource Management
- Web Enhancement
- Integrated with other ERP systems
- Big picture view.
- Gantt timeline view.
- Collaboration with MS Teams.
- Integrating with non-MS collaboration tools.
- It get more functionality it can become expensive.
- More visualization tools to analyze trends.
- Fairly simple in function and does not overwhelm you with too many details--as simple or as detailed as you wish to use it
- It might be the most common scheduling tool in construction and, therefore, does not require much of a learning curve for employees to be trained
- The appearance of the exported deliverables can be finely tuned to your needs or your clients' needs
- The user interface is a bit outdated but still perfectly functional
- Printing schedules--can be tricky to get the view that you want and often requires a creative workaround to get the look you want
- Editing your schedule from the gantt chart activities is not as easy, as Microsoft Project is more geared toward the edits from the table view, which can be challenging for visual learners
Great for large projects
- Resource Allocation
- Task Dependencies
- Gantt Chart
- Ease of use
- Exporting to other formats
- look and feel
Best Scheduling Software... Easy to Use, Manage, & Implement
- Easy to use
- Easy to update / change / manage
- More templates available
- Help section could be more descriptive (use photos)
The Impressive Rise and Potential of MP
- Microsoft Product integrations, including sharing and reminder notifications.
- Interactive Gantt chart.
- More efficient, reliable project and DevOps integration.
- Training resources for new users.
Works well if you’re a PM, challenging for a business end user.
- Timelines.
- Calculations.
- Easier to learn all of the capabilities it can do.
- % compete does not shade in Gantt unless you manually add that line style.
A good value for money software for any corporate
- Microsoft Project has an easy user interface and easy to edit documents.
- It provides good visuals to prepare Gantt charts and define critical paths.
- More complex assignments are not much flexible.
- It's not a very EPC friendly software.
Microsoft Project
- Links tasks
- Shows Gantt chart
- Some of the logic can get messed up.
- It isn't as intuitive as other Microsoft products.
Project Control with Microsoft Project
- Project Gantt View
- Dependencies between activities
- The project reports
- The print preview functionality
Great tool for project management
- Resource allocation.
- Project tracking.
- Expensive license - Online it is available as free with Microsoft Office but the offline license for desktop use is too expensive.
- The online version of Microsoft Project does not have Gantt charts and project tasks like the offline version does.
- Resource allocation - Assign resources for project tasks and allocate the percentage of their involvement.
- Track the project status - Enable people to track the progress of the tasks and risks associated with activities.
- Visualization - Provide the flexibility to visualize the status of the project and risks associated with dashboards and help to present data in a useful manner to executives.
Project Management for advanced users or those willing to learn
- Microsoft Project provides all the typical options you'd want to do in a project management app.
- The Gantt chart bars are interactive; therefore, as you adjust these, the information inside the cells update simultaneously.
- Microsoft Project can take a long time to learn due to all of its functionality and even longer to master.
- The feature-rich application has different ways of doing the same thing, and it might get a bit tricky for some users.
Great project management tool
- Gantt chart tracker is very good at tracking projects.
- Templates are very useful for different projects that managers are involved in.
- Beginner users need some help to get started with Microsoft Project. It needs better documentation.
- There's no real-time updating and Microsoft Project does not work well with multiple users at the same time.
MS Project old fashioned good practice
- Gantt charts.
- Resource management.
- Collaboration.
- Integration with other software.
Expensive in a good-way
Our whole organization uses the same project management but in a different set of groups, depends on their departments and project groups. It allows us to understand the project and cause the collision of various projects.
- Gantt chart tracker
- It integrates with other Microsoft tools.
- Project health tracking
- Templates
- Little expensive
- Required depth learning
A friendly PM software at a good price!
- Great for keeping track of time and resources of projects.
- Can calculate the overall percentage for each project.
- The Gantt Chart automatically updates.
- Sometimes the time calculation for the activities could be a little tricky.
- The resource assignment sometimes can be troublesome.
- It requires a lot of machine resources.
Microsoft Project continues to meet our large organization's project management requirements.
- Visually shows gantt charts of progress in project workstreams
- Shows the elapsed time for tasks to be completed
- Visually identifies the team members assigned to their work streams and if they are behind or on target
- Seems overly complicated for users sometimes in using Project and its functionalities
- Hard to share files for those folks who do not have MS Project, and then have to print out for them
- Can be confusing since it looks and feels like MS Excel
Most Popular Project Management Tool
- It is part of Office365 subscription. The look and feel is similar to other tools like excel. Helps in creating project plans, Gantt charts, work break down structures etc.
- Helps in resource allocation and tracking the projects. There is an option to use it to capture timesheets too.
- Helps project managers in producing weekly status reports and integrates well with other collaboration tools like Skype, sharepoint etc.
- The user experience can be improved.
- More tutorials can be provided online. It takes time to master this tool. It can be made much simpler and easy to learn on the fly.
- The tool can be made more catered towards to agile, scrum project management methodologies.
The former reference software for project management
- You can manage any size project and complexity.
- The visuals of the timeline and gantt charts.
- The way task dependencies work and the whole plan gets updated for any change you do.
- It is so easy to mess up a complex project plan by a simple change and can take hours to fix.
- It is lacking the collaboration that is so needed these days. You need to use Project Server for that.
- The cost is a differentiator for many start-ups selling project management tools.
- Being a Microsoft product, Project integrates extremely well into the Microsoft family of applications!
- Furthermore, the user interface is similar to other Microsoft applications. Therefore, there is a valuable familiarity out of the box.
- Project is incredibly detail-oriented and always receiving valuable updates. Project Online is now the cloud-based version of Project.
- Scheduling works really well for the most part. One can be extremely detailed with Gannt charts and other project management metrics!
- Remote work can be challenging - as Project must be downloaded to a specific computer.
- Upgrading to the top of the line version can feel like a requirement. There is a lot of functionality that is not available unless in the most expensive pay-tiers.
- Microsoft Project can be extremely expensive on a per user basis. Other tools can be much more cost-effective - especially for more basic project management needs.