Project Online alternative
A Microsoft Project Online alternative for PMOs that still need real scheduling
Microsoft retired Project Online on 30 September 2026. If your PMO ran schedules, baselines and portfolio reports there, Critova gives you critical path scheduling, earned value and portfolio dashboards in one web app, and it reads the files you exported.
What happened to Project Online
Microsoft stopped selling Project Online to new customers on 1 October 2025 and retired the service on 30 September 2026. The retirement covers Project Web App (PWA), its OData reporting feed and the project data held in the service. Project desktop, Project Server Subscription Edition and Planner were not part of the retirement.
Microsoft's own direction for cloud customers is Planner. Planner works well for task plans, but teams that used Project Online for enterprise scheduling tend to miss four things: a full critical path with all four link types, more than a handful of baselines, earned value on real costs, and portfolio reporting that does not need a separate Power BI build.
What Critova replaces
- Enterprise scheduling. Forward and backward pass over working-day calendars, four link types with lags, constraints, total and free float, and a Gantt with the data-date line.
- Baselines. Unlimited baselines per project, with variance against any of them.
- Cost and earned value. Cost entries by hand or spreadsheet, then CPI, SPI, SPI(t), EAC and TCPI, each with the formula behind it.
- Portfolio reporting. Eleven dashboards that read the same numbers the planners work in, so there is no separate reporting model to maintain.
- Risk. A risk register and Monte Carlo schedule risk with P50, P80 and P90 dates. Project Online had no built-in equivalent.
- Everyday work. Boards, lists and calendars for the teams that only need tasks, in the same workspace.
Critova and Project Online side by side
| Capability | Critova | Project Online (retired) |
|---|---|---|
| Critical path with four link types, lags and calendars | Yes | Yes |
| Baselines per project | Unlimited | Up to 11 |
| Earned value, with earned schedule (SPI(t)) | Yes | Partial |
| Monte Carlo schedule risk | Yes | No |
| Portfolio dashboards without a separate BI build | Yes | Partial |
| Boards and lists for everyday work | Yes | Partial |
| Timesheets | No | Yes |
| Resource leveling | Planned | Yes |
| Works inside Microsoft 365 and Teams | No | Yes |
Project Online's earned value fields used cost and work from the schedule; earned schedule was not built in.
How to move your schedules
Critova does not connect to Project Online, and the service is no longer reachable. You move with the files you exported before the retirement:
- Open each project in Project desktop and save it as XML (File, Save As, XML Format). Critova does not read binary .mpp files directly.
- Drop the XML into Critova. You see a preview with the activity count, links, calendars and any warnings before anything is created.
- Create the project. Dates, float and the critical path are recalculated straight away, and the baselines in the file come with it.
- Take a new baseline, invite the team and start updating progress.
| MS Project XML | Activities, WBS, links, lags, calendars and baselines |
|---|---|
| Primavera XER | Activities, WBS, relationships and calendars |
| Primavera P6 XML | Activities, WBS, relationships and calendars |
| Excel / CSV | Name, duration, predecessors and phase, from a sample sheet |
What does not come across: timesheets, PWA site content (documents, issues and risks lists held in SharePoint), enterprise custom fields and the resource pool. Plan to re-enter open risks and issues in Critova. The retirement checklist covers each of these.
When Critova is not the right replacement
Stay inside Microsoft's tools if timesheets drive your payroll or billing, if your teams must work inside Teams and Planner, or if you depend on enterprise resource pools with leveling across projects. Critova has a resources workload view today; leveling is planned, and there are no timesheets.
If your need is a web app where planners, project managers and sponsors see one set of numbers, with the scheduling depth Project Online had, Critova is built for that.
Microsoft, Project Online, Microsoft Project, Planner, Oracle, Primavera and P6 are trademarks of their owners. Critova is an independent product and is not affiliated with them.
Common questions
Can Critova open .mpp files?
Not directly. Save the plan as XML from Project desktop, then import the XML. Links, lags, calendars and baselines come across.
I did not export before 30 September 2026. Can Critova recover my data?
No. Critova has no access to Project Online. If you have .mpp or XML copies on a file share or in e-mail, those can be imported. Otherwise ask Microsoft support what is possible for your tenant.
How long does a migration take?
A single schedule imports in minutes. For a PMO, the time goes into checking each project after import and rebuilding the risk and issue registers. We offer a fixed-price package for up to 50 projects.
What does it cost?
Every plan is free until 31 March 2027. After that, published prices start at $24 per planner per month, and viewers and sponsors stay free.
Can I export my data out of Critova later?
Yes. Projects, activities, risks, issues, tasks, costs and change requests export to Excel or CSV at any time.
Bring one schedule. See your critical path in an hour.
Free during our launch until 31 March 2027.
