Migrate from Meisterplan to Microsoft Project

Meisterplan Projects migrate directly as Microsoft Project plans. The Project name, start date, finish date, priority, Total Cost, and Status transfer as standard fields. Custom Project Fields migrate as Enterprise Custom Fields (Project-level) in Project Online/Server or as custom columns in Project Desktop. Dependencies between Projects in Meisterplan map to cross-project predecessor-successor links if a master project structure is built; otherwise they are flagged for manual recreation in the destination Gantt.

Meisterplan Resources carry a name, email, and availability percentage per time period. In Microsoft Project, Resources are entered on the Resource Sheet with Max Units (the availability percentage as a decimal, e.g., 100% availability = 1.0), Hourly Rate (if cost data exists), and Resource Group. We retrieve the availability schedule from the Meisterplan allocation data and set the Max Units accordingly. Note that in Project Online, Resources are part of the SharePoint-connected Resource Engagement model; in Project Desktop, they are local to the plan.

Meisterplan allocations represent a Resource booked to a Project at a given utilization percentage over a time period. Microsoft Project represents the same concept as a Task Assignment: a Resource assigned to a Task with Units (equivalent to the allocation percentage) and Work hours (computed from the project's effort). We transform each allocation row into one or more task-assignment records, splitting by task phase where the allocation covers multiple work breakdown elements. The original allocation percentage is preserved as a custom assignment field for audit.

Meisterplan Scenario Comparison mode (Pro/Premium) has no native equivalent in Microsoft Project. We migrate each Scenario as a separate .mpp file (Desktop) or a separate project in Project Online, tagged with a ScenarioName custom field. If the destination is a single-file environment, the primary Scenario migrates as the active plan and alternate Scenarios are stored as Baseline sets or as separate plans in the same SharePoint library. The customer validates the Scenario mapping strategy during scoping.

Meisterplan Programs group related Projects for portfolio-level reporting. Microsoft Project has no native program construct. We migrate Programs as a Project-level custom text field (Program) on each child project, and if the destination supports a master project or roadmap, we create a Summary Task hierarchy that groups related project plans. The customer chooses the program-to-hierarchy strategy during scoping based on the destination environment.

Milestones migrate as Task records with the Milestone flag set to Yes in Project Desktop or the equivalent milestone task type in Project for the web. The milestone name, date, and associated project linkage are preserved. Dependencies between milestones require cross-task predecessor links that we build during the dependency mapping phase. The Meisterplan help center explicitly notes that Milestone Dependencies cannot be quick-imported; we resolve these through the API dependency endpoint and build them as predecessor links during migration.

Meisterplan Custom Project Fields (up to 100 per project, supporting text, number, date, single-select, multi-select, checkbox, currency, URL, and OBS) require field-by-field mapping to Microsoft Project's custom field system. We retrieve the full field schema via the Meisterplan REST API, then map each field to a typed Enterprise Custom Field (Project-level) in Project Online/Server or a custom column in Project Desktop. Single-select and multi-select fields map to Project Enterprise Custom Fields of type Lookup Table or Text respectively. Values migrate during the project import phase.

Meisterplan financial figures (Approved Budget, CapEx, OpEx, Plan-Ist variance, Cost Type Tracker) are Pro and Premium features. Microsoft Project has no native CapEx/OpEx classification system; we migrate financial data as cost custom fields on the project. We create a set of Cost-type Enterprise Custom Fields in the destination and populate them from the Meisterplan financial export. Customers requiring CapEx/OpEx classification define a custom lookup table in Project Online/Server for cost-type categorization. Financial tracker (cost estimate at completion, earned value) is not available in Project Desktop without the Project Online connection.

Meisterplan Users are free and unlimited; the distinction from Resources is that Users are login accounts and Resources are schedulable employees (paid units). We migrate User accounts as Project team members or Resource contacts depending on whether the destination is Project Online (connected to SharePoint/Entra ID) or Project Desktop. In Project Online, we map Meisterplan Users to Entra ID entries by email match; in Project Desktop, we add them as Resource Sheet entries with an email contact field. Role-based permissions from Meisterplan are documented for manual reconstruction in the destination permission model.

Meisterplan Portfolio Views (Gantt, table, heatmap) are UI artifacts with column layouts, groupings, and filtering rules. Microsoft Project Desktop stores view configurations locally per file and does not support portfolio-level view portfolios. We export the view configuration as a written document listing the column set, grouping, and filter rules for each view. The customer's PMO rebuilds these views in the destination environment. View migration is not a data transfer but a configuration handoff.