Free Project Schedule Health Check

A project schedule health check is an automated audit of your Microsoft Project or similar project schedule file. It analyzes the task structure, dependencies, critical path, resource assignments, and baseline to surface common problems - missing baselines, over-allocated resources, constraint abuse, broken dependency chains, tasks without predecessors, and unrealistic durations. The goal is to catch schedule risks before they turn into missed milestones or blown budgets.

Yes. Upload your schedule, get the full report, download PDF/Excel/CSV exports - no payment, no trial, no credit card. We ask for your email to deliver the report link and to send occasional tips tied to Microsoft Project Online's 2026 retirement - unsubscribe anytime. If you want to continue working with your schedule inside Onplana afterward, you can create a free account.

We accept Microsoft Project binary files (.mpp), MSPDI XML (.xml), .mpx, and Primavera XER (.xer). Files up to 20 MB are supported in the free Schedule Health Check (the full Onplana importer takes files up to 50 MB once you have an account). If you're running an older version of Microsoft Project, save your file in the most recent format your version allows - modern MPP formats work best. Microsoft Project 2003 and earlier are not supported.

Your uploaded schedule is deleted 24 hours after upload - the blob storage lifecycle policy enforces it automatically. The analysis result (scores + findings) is retained longer so you can revisit your report link, but the original file is always purged. Email addresses captured for the full report are encrypted at rest with a dedicated key. We never share uploaded schedules with third parties.

The analyzer runs eight checks on your schedule: critical path issues (identifies the critical path and flags tasks that should be on it but aren't), resource over-allocation (finds team members assigned to more work than they can complete), missing or broken baselines, dangling tasks (no predecessor, no successor, or disconnected from the main plan), constraint abuse (hard constraints like must-start-on or must-finish-on that restrict schedule flexibility), milestone issues (milestones with duration, missing completion criteria, or improper positioning), suspicious task durations (round-number durations like 7, 14, or 30 days that suggest placeholder estimates rather than real planning), and cost coverage / EVM readiness (reads the MSPDI Cost columns, predicts whether earned-value math will use your imported numbers or fall back to rate cards on import). Each finding includes the specific tasks affected and a plain-language explanation of why it matters.

The analyzer uses deterministic rules applied to your schedule's structure - it doesn't guess or infer. If a task has no predecessor, we report it as dangling. If a resource is allocated to 60 hours in a 40-hour week, we flag it as over-allocated. That said, some findings require human judgment: a suspicious duration might be a legitimate estimate for your project. We surface the data; your project knowledge determines what action to take.

Yes. The analyzer is project-management-tool-agnostic - it works on any schedule with standard task structures, dependencies, and resources. We've validated it against schedules from construction, software development, pharma clinical trials, manufacturing, and infrastructure projects. If your schedule follows basic project management principles (tasks, durations, dependencies, resources), it will analyze correctly.

Most schedules process in under 10 seconds. Larger files (10-20 MB with 1,000+ tasks) may take up to 60 seconds as the MPXJ parser walks the binary structure. If your upload takes longer than a minute, something's wrong - check your file format, try again, or contact support.

Start with the findings marked high-severity - these are issues that typically cause schedule slip or resource burnout. Common first actions: adjust task dependencies to eliminate danglings, redistribute work from over-allocated resources, set a baseline if one's missing, and question any round-number durations for tasks on your critical path. The PDF report includes recommendations for each finding. If you want to make the changes and keep working on the schedule, Onplana imports your analyzed schedule into a full project management tool with one click.

Onplana is a modern project management platform that can serve as an alternative to Project Online, which Microsoft is retiring in September 2026. The Schedule Health Check is a free tool specifically - it audits schedules without requiring you to migrate. If you want to migrate fully, Onplana supports importing your existing MPP files, preserves custom fields and dependencies, and gives you a web-native alternative to desktop Project. Many teams run the Health Check first to understand their schedule's current state, then decide if full migration makes sense.

No - when you click "Continue in Onplana" we create a free Onplana org owned by you with the analyzed schedule materialized as a Project. You can delete the org anytime, and the free plan has no time limit. Uploads go over HTTPS, the parsing service has no public ingress, and imported data lives under your account's standard retention controls.

Yes - to keep these tools free and fast for everyone, we apply reasonable limits: up to 5 uploads per day, and up to 10 email unlocks per email per day. Limits reset on a rolling 24-hour window. If you hit a limit, we'll tell you when you can retry. For higher-volume needs, email support@onplana.com.