Migrate from PlanZone to Microsoft Project

PlanZone Projects map directly to Microsoft Project plans. Project name, description, start date, finish date, status, and owner assignment migrate as Project-level fields. We resolve the PlanZone owner email against the destination's resource list or Active Directory if the migration target is Project Online with Azure AD integration. Active and archived projects migrate by default; the customer specifies archived project scope during scoping.

PlanZone Tasks map to Microsoft Project Tasks. Name, start date, finish date, duration, percent complete, priority, and assignee migrate as standard task fields. PlanZone's status field maps to Microsoft Project's Percent Complete or Status field depending on whether the customer tracks progress by duration completion or manual status update. Sub-tasks export from PlanZone with a parent reference field; we reconstruct the outline hierarchy in Microsoft Project by setting the Task Summary field or the Outline Number and Outline Level fields during import.

PlanZone Milestones are flagged task types with a milestone name and target date. We migrate these as Microsoft Project Tasks with zero duration and the Milestone checkbox set to Yes. The milestone name maps to the Task Name field and the target date maps to the Finish date. Milestone predecessors (if any) migrate as explicit predecessor links on the milestone task.

PlanZone stores task dependencies as a parent-reference field on the child task. We run a pre-migration transformation pass that reads every task's dependency reference, looks up the predecessor task by name or ID in the exported project, and writes a Microsoft Project predecessor link with type FS (Finish-to-Start) as the default. If the customer uses non-FS dependency types in PlanZone, we capture the type during scoping and map accordingly. The resulting predecessor list is validated against the schedule's forward-pass logic before load to catch any circular references that PlanZone's flat model permits.

PlanZone reusable project templates export as project skeletons with template-derived tasks and milestones. We migrate each template-derived project as a standard Microsoft Project plan and tag it with a custom field TemplateOrigin__c or a note recording the source template name. The customer decides during scoping whether to rebuild the template as a Microsoft Project Enterprise Project Type (EPT) linked to a SharePoint template library, or to use the migrated plans as starting-point copies for recurring work. We do not migrate template linkages as live connections.

PlanZone task assignments store user email on each task. We extract all distinct assignee emails, map them to Microsoft Project Resources by name or email match against the destination's resource pool, and create Assignment records linking each task to its assigned resource with the planned work hours derived from task duration and the resource's max units. Any PlanZone user without a matching resource in the destination is flagged in the reconciliation report for the customer to provision before production migration.

PlanZone custom fields on Projects and Tasks are discovered during the schema audit step. For Microsoft Project Online, custom fields are configured in the Enterprise Custom Fields area or as SharePoint list columns on the associated Project Site. For Microsoft Project Desktop, custom fields are local to the MPP file and configured in the Custom Fields dialog. We document each PlanZone custom field with its data type, populate values, and destination equivalent, and the customer or a Microsoft partner creates the target fields before data load. We do not create fields programmatically for desktop MPP targets.

PlanZone file attachments on tasks are referenced by URL in the export. We generate a file manifest listing each attachment's task reference, file name, and URL, and we re-upload files to the destination's attachment storage during the load phase. For Project Online, attachments land on the associated SharePoint document library. For Project Desktop, attachments are embedded or linked in the MPP file. We flag any URLs pointing to inaccessible or expired PlanZone-hosted files in the pre-migration audit.

PlanZone task comments are threaded text entries with author and timestamp. We export them as a flat list per task and migrate them to Microsoft Project Task Notes or to the Notes field of the associated task. The author name and timestamp are prepended to each comment block so the conversation thread is preserved in reading order. If the customer uses Microsoft Project Online with an associated SharePoint site, we can alternatively write comments to the SharePoint task list item Comments field.

PlanZone status-driven Stages are project-level groupings that organize tasks by workflow phase. We map Stage names to Microsoft Project Summary Tasks at the top level of each task hierarchy, or to Task Groups if the destination is Project Online with Planner integration. The customer chooses the representation during scoping. Stage-based filters and color coding in PlanZone have no direct Microsoft Project equivalent and are documented as manual-recreate items.