Construction scheduling software that survives a programme review
Onplana reads .mpp, Primavera XER and spreadsheet programmes, scores them against all fourteen DCMA checks, and keeps the Gantt, the critical path and baseline variance on the Free plan.
Written for whoever owns the programme
Main contractors
You issue the programme and receive fourteen back from trades who each built theirs differently. The job is reconciling those into something you can defend at a progress meeting.
Subcontractors
Somebody else owns the master programme. You have to fit inside it, prove you did, and show what it cost you when it moved. Usually with no planner on staff.
Engineering consultancies
Phased deliverables with sign-off gates, where the schedule is contractual and the client reviews it rather than reads it.
Residential and small builders
Several jobs at once, the same three crews across all of them, no planning department. The clash is the problem, not the Gantt chart.
What changes when a trade sends the next programme
Reviewing it by hand
- Find someone with a licence for whatever tool they used.
- Scroll the task list counting the ones with no predecessor.
- Open each task's advanced tab to see whether it carries a hard constraint.
- Eyeball the float column for negative numbers.
- Write it up in an email that nobody can reproduce or argue with.
Running the check
- Upload the file they sent, in the format they sent it.
- Fourteen checks run at once, each one pass, fail or not assessed.
- Every result names the tasks behind it, so it is arguable.
- Send them the standard, and they can run it themselves.
How it works
Step 1
Read the programme they actually sent
Upload .mpp, Microsoft Project XML, .mpx, Primavera XER, ProjectLibre, GanttProject, Excel or CSV. A column mapping step handles the spreadsheet, and a fidelity preview tells you what will and will not survive before you commit to it. Resources match by email, and anybody unmatched is listed rather than dropped in silence.
Step 2
Score it against the standard the contract names
All fourteen DCMA checks run at once: logic, leads, lags, relationship types, hard constraints, high and negative float, high duration, invalid dates, resources, missed tasks, the critical path test, CPLI and BEI. Every result names the tasks behind it, and a check the file could not answer reports as not assessed rather than as a pass.
Step 3
Report against the baseline every month
A Microsoft Project programme imported into a new project arrives with its baseline; a P6 programme needs one captured once it is in. Either way the variance against it is a report rather than a rebuild. Start and finish variance per task, the slip on the project finish, and the tasks driving it, in the same shape every month so the progress meeting stops arguing about the numbers.
Proof
All fourteen DCMA checks, not a selected few, and free rather than an enterprise add-on. The desktop app has run them since September 2026 and the browser tool since the same month. A check the source file could not answer reports as not assessed, so the score is never flattered by data that was never there.
The standard is not ours: the fourteen-point schedule assessment is published by the US Defense Contract Management Agency and is named in government and infrastructure contracts, which is why your client may already be asking for it. And you do not have to take our word for the rest, which is the better kind of proof: the Schedule Health Check reads your own programme and reports what it found, before you create an account. It answers for your file rather than for ours.
What it costs, and what it does not do
The scheduling half is on the Free plan, with no seat minimum. It replaces the desktop licence you keep renewing so that one person can still open the programme.
- Gantt chart with the critical path through it
- Baselines, and the variance against them
- Milestones and working calendars, including holidays
- The issue log, kept separate from the programme
- Multi-currency budgets
- Cross-project reports and shareable report links
- Import from .mpp, Project XML, .mpx, Primavera XER, ProjectLibre, GanttProject, Excel and CSV
Resource capacity planning and earned value are on Professional and up.
The honest limits
- The check scores the programme as submitted. It does not judge whether the durations are realistic, which is the other half of a real review. Treat the score as the argument you open with, not the verdict.
- We read Primavera XER and cannot write it. Microsoft Project XML we do write. If your main contractor requires XER back, the round trip does not close.
- Levelling works inside one programme. Capacity is org-wide, so you see a trade committed across three jobs, but the tool that proposes moves arbitrates within a single schedule. Which job gives way is your call, and it probably should be.
This is not a field platform
No daily logs, no RFIs, no submittal registers, no drawing management, no site photos, no inspection checklists. If what you need is a phone at the site gate capturing what happened today, buy something built for that. We are not it, and a page implying otherwise would waste a week of your evaluation.
What we are is the programme: build it, check it against a standard, read whatever anyone sends, and report against a baseline every month without rebuilding the report. Plenty of firms run both, and the schedule is the half that usually has no owner.
What contractors ask us
Is this actually free, or free until it matters?
The scheduling half is free, permanently, on the Free plan: the Gantt with its critical path, baselines and variance, milestones, working calendars, the issue log, multi-currency budgets, cross-project reports, and import from .mpp, Project XML, .mpx, Primavera XER, ProjectLibre, GanttProject, Excel and CSV. Resource capacity planning and earned value are on Professional and up. The Schedule Health Check needs no account at all.
Can you open a Primavera P6 programme?
Yes, we read XER, and we cannot write it. So a P6 programme comes in, schedules, checks and reports, but if your main contractor requires an XER file back then the round trip does not close and you should know that before you start rather than three weeks in. Microsoft Project XML we do write.
What does the schedule check actually check?
The fourteen DCMA checks: logic, leads, lags, relationship types, hard constraints, high float, negative float, high duration, invalid dates, resources, missed tasks, critical path test, critical path length index and baseline execution index. It scores the programme as submitted. It does not judge whether the durations are realistic, which is the other half of a review and the half a person still has to do.
Do my baselines come across from the old file?
From a Microsoft Project file, yes. Import a .mpp or Project XML programme into a new project and its baseline comes across as a baseline in Onplana, so the Baseline tab and its variance report work from day one, and baseline cost lands on each task. Adding a file to an existing project keeps each task's baseline dates but creates no baseline, and a Primavera .xer carries none, so capture one right after either of those imports. It takes a click.
Does it do daily logs, RFIs and submittals?
No. Those are field operations and this is a scheduling tool. If what you need is a photo log on a phone at the site gate, a field platform is the right purchase and we are not it. If what you need is a programme that holds up under review, that is this.
We run five jobs with the same crews. Does it spot the clash?
Capacity is tracked across the whole organisation, so a person or a trade committed beyond their hours shows up once rather than in whichever programme you happened to open. Levelling, which proposes the moves, is a per-schedule analysis, so it works inside one programme rather than resolving a clash between three. Seeing the clash and resolving it are different jobs, and the second one is still yours.
Moving off Microsoft Project rather than working alongside it? The migration guide covers what survives, and Onplana Schedule opens .mpp and XER on the desktop for free. If the question is the people rather than the programme, construction labor scheduling covers crew capacity across every job in detail.
Start with the programme you already have
The scheduling half is free and stays free. Bring a programme in, check it, and report against a baseline every month without rebuilding the report.
Start on the Free plan