Migrate from Alian Hub to Microsoft Project

Alian Hub Projects map 1:1 to Microsoft Project project files or Project Online projects. The Project Name, description, and start date migrate directly. Alian Hub's Board, Table, Calendar, and Gantt view preferences are preserved as metadata for reference but do not map to a native Microsoft Project equivalent since Project is primarily a Gantt-centric tool. We preserve the Alian Hub project ID in a custom enterprise field for traceability back to the source system during the migration window.

Alian Hub Tasks map to Microsoft Project Tasks with Name, Start/Finish dates, Duration, Priority, and Status preserved. Custom status labels used within Alian Hub (e.g., In Progress, Blocked, QA Review) are mapped to Microsoft Project's Status field and a custom Status_Label field to preserve the original terminology. Assignee from Alian Hub maps to the Resource Names field in Microsoft Project after we run the user reconciliation step.

Alian Hub Subtasks become Microsoft Project subtasks (child tasks within the outline hierarchy). The parent-child relationship is preserved by setting the Outline Level and WBS number structure. Original ordering of subtasks within the parent task is maintained by sorting on the Alian Hub Subtask sequence field before insertion. If the destination is Project Online rather than desktop, we flatten deeply nested subtasks (more than three levels) into summary task groups to avoid outline overflow issues.

Alian Hub Custom Fields migrate to Microsoft Project custom fields. Text fields map to Text custom fields, number fields to Number custom fields, date fields to Date custom fields, and dropdown fields to Flag or Cost custom fields depending on the semantic meaning. We detect all active custom field definitions during scoping and create the destination field schema before migration. Note that Microsoft Project Plan 1 does not support custom enterprise fields; Plan 3 or Plan 5 is required for this mapping to be fully functional.

Alian Hub time entries (captured via the Timesheet Management module on paid tiers) map to Microsoft Project task-level Actual Work values. Multiple time entries for the same task are summed into a single Actual Work value. The date of each time entry is mapped to the corresponding Actual Work date. If the Alian Hub instance includes task-level notes or descriptions in the time entries, we append them to the task Notes field. Keystroke and mouse tracking data from the Alian Hub desktop tracker is not migrated as it has no Microsoft Project equivalent.

Alian Hub Users map to Microsoft Project Resources. We perform a user reconciliation step matching Alian Hub user email addresses to the destination's resource list. Resources in Microsoft Project can be Material (consumable) or Work (hourly) resources; we default all Alian Hub users to Work resources. The Alian Hub role (Admin, Project Manager, Team Member) maps to a custom Resource Field for role attribution. If a user does not have a corresponding resource entry, we create a placeholder Resource during migration and flag it for the customer's admin to complete.

Alian Hub Tags (flat tag arrays on tasks and projects) migrate to a Microsoft Project Text custom field. We recommend creating a Tags_text custom field during schema setup. If the customer uses fewer than 10 distinct tags across the dataset, we can alternatively use Flag fields with custom labels. The customer chooses the strategy during scoping based on how tags are used in reporting.

Alian Hub file attachments associated with tasks and projects are migrated by extracting the files from the self-hosted storage directory and uploading them to a SharePoint document library that the Microsoft Project site connects to. We provide the SharePoint URL mapping for each task so that the customer's admin can link documents via the Hyperlink field in Microsoft Project. We flag large attachment volumes (over 5 GB total) for bandwidth planning and may recommend a phased file transfer.

Alian Hub Channels and One-to-One Chat are collaboration metadata with no Microsoft Project equivalent. Microsoft Project does not include a native messaging or discussion feature. We export channel metadata (channel name, creation date, member count) and chat message timestamps to a JSON reference file for the customer's records. Collaboration workflows built around Alian Hub channels should be rebuilt in Microsoft Teams as a separate post-migration task.

Alian Hub's built-in AI Assistant (available on paid tiers) generates task descriptions, summaries, and productivity suggestions. These are ephemeral output generated at query time and are not persisted as structured records. We do not migrate AI-generated content as it is not source-of-record data. We note in the migration inventory that the customer should re-run AI summarization on key projects in the destination system after migration.