Move off Microsoft Project without losing your dependencies
Onplana reads all four dependency types and their lag straight out of your .mpp, keeps the critical path live as dates move, and does it on the Free plan.
What changes on the day you switch
Rebuilding by hand
- Re-draw the predecessor network task by task in the new tool.
- Look up each link's type and lag in the old file, one at a time.
- Re-baseline in a spreadsheet because the import dropped them.
- Find the loop you introduced when the dates stop making sense.
Importing it
- Upload the file. The network arrives with it.
- Each link keeps the type and lag it already had.
- Baselines and costs come across in the same pass.
- A loop is refused as you draw it, with the tasks named.
How it works
Step 1
Import the file you already have
Upload a .mpp, MSPDI XML, .mpx or Primavera .xer straight from Microsoft Project. Tasks, dependencies, resources, baselines and costs come across in one pass.
Step 2
Every link arrives with its type and its lag
Finish-to-Start, Start-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish and Start-to-Finish, each keeping the lag it carried in the source. A pair can hold more than one link, so an SS and an FF between the same two tasks both survive.
Step 3
The critical path stays live as dates move
Drag a bar and the successors move with it. The critical path is recomputed against the project calendar rather than redrawn by hand, and a link that would create a loop is refused at the point you draw it.
Proof
The scheduling engine models all eight Microsoft Project constraint types, not a reduced four, and has done since September 2026. Lag is stored to the minute rather than rounded to days on the way in.
Verified against a real Microsoft Project export: the .mpp export walkthrough covers the file this reads, and the Schedule Health Check reports what it found in yours before you create anything.
What it costs, and what it does not do
Dependencies, the Gantt with critical path, and project file import are all on the Free plan, with no seat minimum. It replaces the desktop licence you are holding on to purely so somebody can still open the schedule.
The honest limit
Scheduling works in whole days. A lag of four hours is stored exactly, shown exactly, and written back out exactly, but it will not shift a successor by half a day the way Microsoft Project does. If your plans depend on sub-day lag to be correct, that difference will matter to you and you should know it before you move, not after.
Questions people ask before they move
Do all four dependency types survive a .mpp import?
Yes. Finish-to-Start, Start-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish and Start-to-Finish all come across, each keeping its lag. Constraint types come across too, all eight of the Microsoft Project set rather than a reduced four.
What happens to lag that is not a whole number of days?
It is stored exactly as the file had it, down to the minute, and it round-trips back out unchanged. Scheduling currently works in whole days, so a lag under a day is kept faithfully but does not yet shift a successor. Nothing is silently rounded in your data.
Can a dependency cross from one project into another?
Yes, and the successor honours it: its dates are computed against the other project's task as a fixed anchor. The constraint runs one way by design. Moving the predecessor reflows the successor on its next schedule calculation rather than reaching into another project to rewrite dates nobody asked it to touch.
What stops someone creating a circular dependency?
The link is refused when you draw it. The check walks the whole dependency graph rather than the immediate neighbours, so an A to B to C back to A loop is caught, and it names the tasks involved instead of failing with an error code.
Which plan is this on?
Free. Dependencies, the Gantt with critical path, and project file import are all on it, with no seat minimum. Scheduling rigour is not the thing we put behind a tier.
Do I have to rebuild the schedule to see whether it imported correctly?
No. Run the file through the free Schedule Health Check first and it reports what it found, including dependency counts and the links it could not resolve, before you create anything.
Bring your plan across and see the links for yourself
Import a .mpp on the Free plan. Nothing to uninstall, and the file you have stays exactly as it is.
Import a plan free