Migrate from OpenText Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) to Microsoft Project

OpenText PPM Portfolios aggregate Programs and Projects for executive visibility. We map Portfolios to Microsoft 365 Planner Buckets (inside a Planner Plan) or to Project Online Portfolio Views. Portfolio-level budget allocations and strategic themes migrate as custom metadata fields on the destination bucket. If the customer selects Project Server Subscription Edition as the destination, Portfolios map to the native Portfolio Analysis module. Custom portfolio properties from OpenText PPM extend as custom fields on the destination object.

OpenText PPM Programs are top-level containers with linked Projects, governance workflows, and financial rollups. We map Programs 1:1 to Microsoft 365 Groups attached to Planner plans (for Planner Premium destinations) or to Project Online Program records (for Project Online and Project Server SE destinations). Program-level stage-gate lifecycle status migrates as a custom Program Status field; the stage-gate workflow itself is documented separately for Power Automate rebuild.

OpenText PPM Projects map to Planner Plans (Planner Premium) or Project Online Project Sites. We preserve task hierarchies, start and end dates, summary tasks, and task-level custom fields. Dependencies between tasks within a single project migrate as Planner native task dependencies (finish-to-start, start-to-start, finish-to-finish, start-to-finish). Task-level resource assignments and time-phased work estimates transfer to Planner Assignments or Project Online Assignment entities.

OpenText PPM Demands represent incoming work requests that feed project intake. There is no native Demand object in Microsoft Project or Planner. We map active Demands to Planner task records in a dedicated intake bucket or to custom Dataverse tables (Project Server SE destinations). Demand status, priority, requestor, and estimated effort transfer as custom fields. The demand approval workflow is not migrated; we document it for Power Automate rebuild.

OpenText PPM Requests are workflow items in the demand-management intake process. Active Requests with pending approval status migrate to Planner tasks in an intake bucket for manual prioritization, or to Dataverse records for Power Automate approval routing (Project Server SE destinations). Historical Request data and submission records migrate as task notes. Workflow state transitions are not migrated as automation; we deliver a written Request workflow map for the customer's admin.

OpenText PPM Resources represent staff members with skill profiles, availability calendars, role assignments, and capacity allocations. We map Resources to Microsoft 365 Users (Planner) or Project Online Resources. Skill profiles migrate as custom skill fields on the destination User or Resource record. Availability calendars and capacity percentages transfer to the destination's resource calendar or availability view. OpenText PPM's overload ratio field migrates as a custom field for reporting.

OpenText PPM tracks cost lines and benefit lines at the portfolio, program, and project levels. Microsoft Project (Planner and Project Online) does not have a native portfolio financial management module. We map cost lines to custom number fields on the Project record (e.g., planned_cost, actual_cost) and benefit lines to custom currency fields. Top-down budget allocations and bottom-up rollup structures are preserved as documented field mappings; the customer configures any financial rollup logic in Power BI or a Dataverse calculated column post-migration.

OpenText PPM custom properties on Demands, Projects, Programs, Resources, and Financial Lines extend the base schema per instance. Every OpenText PPM custom field discovered during pre-migration schema audit is mapped to an equivalent custom field in the destination Planner plan or Project Online project site. Field data types are matched (text to text, number to number, date to date, picklist to choice). Instance-specific custom properties that have no meaningful destination equivalent are flagged in the mapping document for the customer to decide whether to drop or preserve in a generic notes field.

OpenText PPM natively supports cross-project dependencies (finish-to-start, start-to-start, finish-to-finish, start-to-finish) across the portfolio hierarchy. Microsoft Planner does not natively support cross-project task dependencies. For Planner destinations, we model cross-project dependencies in Dataverse tables and connect them using Power Automate flows that trigger notifications or date updates when a predecessor completes. For Project Online and Project Server SE destinations, cross-project dependencies migrate as native predecessor links within the PWA schedule. This is one of the highest-severity mapping decisions and is confirmed during technical discovery.

OpenText PPM stage-gate lifecycle definitions govern project and program workflow transitions with configurable stages, gates, and approval actions. Microsoft Project has no equivalent stage-gate workflow designer. We document every active stage-gate definition (stages, gates, responsible roles, transition rules) in a written workflow inventory that the customer's admin uses to rebuild in Power Automate (Planner destinations) or Project Server workflow designer (Project Server SE). Stage-gate definitions are not migrated as code.

Time logged against OpenText PPM Projects or Resources migrates as timesheet records tied to the relevant Project Online project and resource. We preserve hours logged, time period, and the associated resource. Approval status and approval history are flagged as partial-migration items because approval workflow state is not fully exportable from OpenText PPM. For Planner destinations, time entries migrate to Planner task assignments with hours recorded as a custom field.

Documents attached to OpenText PPM Projects, Programs, or Requests are stored in OpenText's file management layer. We extract file metadata (filename, upload date, uploader, file size) and re-upload binary files to the destination's SharePoint Online document library (Project Online) or the Planner plan's associated SharePoint site. File associations are preserved by linking each document to the corresponding project or task record in the destination. Binary file migration runs as a parallel stream to the record migration.