Project Online No Longer Available: Now What

Project Online became no longer available on September 30, 2026. Anything that read it live stopped with it: Project Web App, OData-backed reports, and enterprise resource pool sync. Anything already exported or imported did not. Billing is a separate admin step, so check that Project Plan 3 and Plan 5 subscriptions have been cancelled rather than assuming retirement ended them.

Understanding the post-retirement sequence (the last event in the 2026 Microsoft retirement timeline) is not just useful for contingency planning; it shapes how you prioritize your migration work and which data types you move first. The answer matters whether you are 90% done or have barely started.

The diagram below shows the five phases of the post-retirement timeline as migration plans saw it before the date, from the last days of full service through the point where all access was expected to be gone.

The dashed segment between September 30 and the expected permanent shutdown was the piece that tripped up most migration plans. Teams saw "~90 days of read-only access" repeated in migration write-ups and mentally gave themselves until December to finish. Do not plan around it now either: work from what you exported.

What "Retirement" Actually Means for an Enterprise SaaS Product

When Microsoft retires a SaaS product, the infrastructure that runs it stops being maintained and eventually stops being provisioned. It is not the same as end-of-support, where a product continues running but no longer receives updates. Retirement means the service literally stops.

For Project Online, that meant Project Web App, the OData API, and the timesheet workflow all retired on the same date. Microsoft confirms the September 30, 2026 retirement date on its Project Online lifecycle page. Anything that read Project Online live stopped with it; anything already exported or imported did not.

The operational difference from a customer's perspective: on September 29 your PMO directors could log into PWA, check portfolio status, approve timesheets, and run OData-backed Power BI reports. From September 30, anything that depended on that live service stopped with it. The question of what happens next is the one this post answers.

What Stopped: Project Online After September 30

On September 30, 2026, everything that read Project Online live stopped with it. Files already saved or exported did not, and licensing is a separate admin step.

Those files also open without Project Professional: Onplana Schedule is free for Windows and Mac, and saves Project XML that the desktop client still reads.

PWA site collection access. PWA was the live service, so every bookmark to your PWA URL (https://[tenant].sharepoint.com/sites/pwa or whatever alias you configured) stopped with it. Do not plan on reaching it again.

OData API endpoint. Power BI reports, Excel workbooks with OData connections, custom dashboards, and any application that read /_api/ProjectData live stopped with the service. If those reports drove executive steering meetings, rebuild them against your destination platform or the data you exported.

Project Online Desktop Client online features. The desktop application itself still opens locally saved .mpp files. What stopped is everything that required a live PWA connection: checking out a project from the server, publishing an updated schedule, syncing resource assignments from the enterprise resource pool, submitting work actuals.

Resource pool synchronization. Projects in the Desktop Client with resources from the enterprise resource pool can no longer sync those assignments, because the sync read the live service. The local copy of the project keeps the resource names.

Timesheet system. The timesheet web application inside PWA stopped with the service. Time entries you did not export before September 30 have to be recovered from your team's own records. This is the category that causes the most immediate operational pain.

Stage gates and governance workflows. Projects that were mid-approval (a PDP form submitted, a stage gate awaiting sponsor decision) did not complete that approval in Project Online. Record the decision in the destination tool instead.

The Read-Only Window: What It Covers and What It Doesn't

Before the date, migration write-ups often assumed Microsoft might keep a limited read-only window open afterward, citing a rough precedent of 60 to 90 days from other SaaS retirements. That window was never formalized in the Project Online service agreement. It was not an SLA commitment.

Even the optimistic version assumed read access only: no new projects, no timesheet submissions, no workflow actions.

Three reasons not to plan around this window:

1. Throttling. Any read-only access would be shared by every organization that missed the export deadline, so an export that took three days in May cannot be counted on to finish at all.

2. No guarantee on scope. Microsoft may provide read access to some data types but not others. Timesheet history, for example, might not be accessible even if project schedules are.

3. It delays everything else. A team waiting for the read-only window to "finish their export" is not finalizing their destination platform configuration, not training users, and not stabilizing processes. The migration gets pushed another three months while the new platform sits idle.

The Project Online retirement 90-day plan was built around a September 1 practical deadline specifically to avoid this trap. Now that the date has passed, the same logic applies: start from what you exported. Project Online Data: Import What You Exported covers that step.

What Happens to Historical Project Data Long-Term

Plan as if access to Project Online's database has ended for good.

This is the part that is difficult to communicate to stakeholders who haven't managed a SaaS sunset before. Anything that read Project Online live stopped with it; anything already exported or imported did not. Do not plan on a "request your data" path, a backup restoration service, or a support ticket that retrieves a project: none was ever promised.

For organizations with audit, compliance, or contractual requirements around project record retention (SOX controls, ISO 9001 quality records, government contract documentation, client billing evidence), this was a hard deadline, not a soft one. If those records need to exist in 2028, the copy you exported is the one to protect: move it into a system you control now.

The practical implication: historical projects that your organization would normally archive rather than actively migrate need the same care. Store the copies you exported in a system you control; Project Online Data: Import What You Exported covers what those files carry. Archiving to Azure Blob Storage, S3, or an internal document management system in structured formats like CSV, Parquet, or XML is appropriate for this use case. You're not migrating those projects to a new PM tool; you're preserving the audit record.

Which Permissions and Integrations Break First

The sequence matters for organizations that were partially migrated when the retirement date arrived.

Power BI and Excel connections stopped with the service, since they read the OData API live. An organization that migrated 80% of its active projects but kept reporting on Project Online's OData feed has no live data behind those dashboards.

Power Automate flows using the Project Online connector read it live, so they stopped with it. That includes flows that routed timesheet approvals, triggered gateway notifications, or synced data to other systems. Check each flow's run history rather than waiting for a user to report a missing approval.

SharePoint permissions on PWA-derived sites are SharePoint Online settings, separate from the Project Online service. Check access to the project-specific SharePoint sites (the ones that hosted issue lists and document libraries) directly rather than assuming either way.

Azure AD / Entra ID app registrations that use the Project Online API scope are tenant objects, separate from the service. Any service account or daemon application that polled Project Online stopped getting data with it; update or decommission those configurations.

M365 Group memberships associated with Project Online sites are Microsoft 365 objects, separate from the service. Review them: if any were tied to Project Online seats, they may carry licensing implications.

What the M365 Admin Should Check Now

From the M365 admin center, check three things: the Project Online service entry, the PWA site collection in the SharePoint admin center, and any provisioning scripts that reference Project Online APIs. Anything that read Project Online live stopped with it, so those scripts need updating or removing.

License reclamation is a separate administrative action. Do not assume Project Online Professional and Premium license assignments were removed when the service retired. Check them and remove any that remain (typically via the M365 admin center, PowerShell, or your Microsoft licensing agreement terms) to avoid paying for license seats that serve no function. For the broader retirement timeline, replacement-product gaps, and migration-path framing this sits inside, see the Project Online retirement guide.

SharePoint admin operations on PWA-derived site collections, such as content migration off those sites, permission changes, or site inventories, were best done before the retirement date. If any are still open, do them now and record what you could and could not reach.

The Four Situations, and What Each One Costs

Where you stood on September 30 determines what "Project Online is no longer available" actually costs you, not just whether it's true. Four situations cover nearly every tenant, and the gap between the best and worst one is not close.

The first two situations are recoverable by definition: the export happened before the service retired. The second two depend on a window Microsoft never formally committed to, which is why the retirement timeline and what stops working treats "wait and see" as the riskiest strategy in this cluster, not a neutral one. If you're searching for what's still reachable, accessing archived Project Online data after retirement covers what a queryable archive needs to contain before anyone can search it, and what your options are if you don't have one.

What to Do Now

The practical insight from this post is that now Project Online has retired, you have limited options and no guaranteed recovery path. Work forward from what you have:

First: gather every .mpp file and OData extract your team exported, from PM drives, shared folders, and earlier test migrations.

Next: check what each file brings across with the Migration Preview. Onplana Schedule opens an exported .mpp without Project Professional.

Then: bring the files in. Files you exported still import, with dependencies, custom fields and costs, and a .mpp or Project XML file imported into a new project brings its baseline as a baseline in Onplana. Project Online Data: Import What You Exported covers the step.

Finally: list what is missing (timesheets, workflow state, anything changed after your last export) and decide with each record owner how to rebuild it.

The Project Online end-of-life overview covers the full data impact in more detail. When you're ready to run your inventory before committing to a migration scope, the Project Online migration checklist covers all six asset categories that migrations consistently undercount. And the Project Online inventory checklist tool gives you an interactive version you can run against what you exported. Once you've narrowed the destination shortlist, Onplana's Microsoft Project alternative page shows how imported schedules look.

Run the free Project Online Inventory Checklist Check every project, resource pool, and custom field you need to keep against what you exported. About 10 minutes, no signup required. → Open the checklist

Microsoft Project Online™ is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Onplana is not affiliated with Microsoft.