Anna Shalomova
PPM Consultant
As most know, migrating to Microsoft Project Online can become complicated and time-consuming. To address this, FluentPro has built a tool designed to automate the process and reduce Project Online migration risks to a minimum – FluentPro FluentBooks.
FluentBooks automates several tasks and processes, saving administrators and consultants work days. It provides the best control and speed of migration that you’ll ever experience.
Furthermore, every migration to Project Online involves several risks, which we believe every PMO should take into account to ensure that the migration is successful. FluentBooks automates the tasks involved, significantly reducing or eliminating the risks. Here’s a checklist you can go through to ensure your migration is effective.
Technical Risks
1. Inaccurate Account or Resource Mapping
Once Projects are uploaded, it’s challenging to correct them. At the same time, if not corrected, they will affect data migration and may result in duplicated Resources created by AD Sync.
2. Complex Master Projects
These can cause increases in average download/upload/verification time.
3. Costs or Budget Resources assigned to Project Summary Tasks
This will require additional manual steps due to MS Project Professional’s limitations.
4. Workflows/Site Templates from older versions of Project Server
Old versions of templates need to be rebuilt for Project Online – an additional step that can’t be overlooked.
5. Projects with a large number of Assignments (50+) per Task
A large number of assignments will have a direct impact on upload time.
6. Quality of Source Data
It affects download/upload processes. Examples of quality issues in source data include broken links in Master Projects, removed fields in Formula fields, and duplicated Resources.
Process Risks
1. Incomplete Migration Strategy/Planning
We suggest that the strategy should include the following steps:
- Identify components for migration;
- decide if data will be migrated to a clean or preconfigured environment;
- prioritize what needs to be migrated and what can be left in the older system;
- identify what elements are not supported in Project Online and develop a mitigation plan for these;
- and finally, identify post-migration activities.
2. Lack of experience with Project Server/Project Online/FluentBooks by the Migration team
3. Lack of understanding of Project Online’s technical boundaries
There are technical limitations and specifics that you need to understand, as in any software system. A major one is a concept of throttling within SharePoint and Project Online, which defines how much data can be uploaded simultaneously. In addition, there are technical boundaries regarding what can be migrated; for example, some customizations in your Project Server and SharePoint that can’t be taken to Project Online as is. Identify them upfront and manage those exceptions.
4. Incomplete validation of migrated data before proceeding to the next step
The best way to do this is by reporting your source data against the target data in the environments and using data comparison wizards in FluentBooks.
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