FluentPro FluentBooks is a desktop application that uses public APIs provided by Microsoft (PSI, CSOM, OData, SharePoint Foundation RPC Protocol, SharePoint 2013 Web Services) for data migration between Project Server On-Premises and Project Online, as well as between different Project Online instances.
Direct operations with the database are not performed during migration with FluentBooks (i.e. it is not a database to database migration); data is downloaded via API from a Source PWA as a local copy to FluentBooks workspace files (PWA Configuration, SharePoint Content) and FPP packages (Projects Content) and then this data is uploaded to a Destination PWA also via API.
During data upload PWA Config, Projects, SharePoint Content entities are created in the Destination PWA, therefore, system read-only fields like Created, Last Published, Last Modified are set to the date of migration and will be not the same as in the Source PWA.
1. PWA Configuration
Migration of the following configuration entities is not supported:
| Configuration Entity | Support Notes |
| Enterprise Global | Customizations to Enterprise Global Template will need to be re-created in the Destination PWA, if necessary (Project Professional filters, views, tables, etc., are not supported for migration). |
| Active Directory Resource Pool Synchronization settings | AD Groups will need to be specified manually. |
| OLAP cubes | OLAP cubes are not supported in Project Online. |
| Reporting | Reporting settings may need to be adjusted manually (only for Project Server -Project Online migrations). |
| Project Server 2010 Workflows | Project Server 2010 Workflows are not supported in Project Online, therefore, will need to be re-created specifically for Project Online. |
| Workflows created not in SharePoint Designer |
Migration of third-party workflows is not supported.
Only workflows created in SharePoint Designer will be migrated.
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| Status Reports | Migration of Status Reports is not supported. |
| Approvals | Migration of Approvals is not supported. Please note that all status updates should be approved and published to projects before the projects are downloaded, otherwise, they will be lost. |
| Invalid Delegations | Delegations for inactive users, users with no Logon permission, with no Can Be Delegate permission expired Delegations cannot be migrated. |
| Users in Active Directory | FluentBooks migrates Project Server Resources and Users, given that the appropriate user account already exists in the Destination Active Directory and account mapping was performed correctly. |
| Security Groups vs AD Groups association | AD Groups will need to be set manually for Security Groups, if AD Sync will be used. |
| Portfolio Analyses | Portfolio Analyses will need to be adjusted manually if projects are missing from the Destination PWA. Portfolio Analysis Baseline Scenario with Constraint Type: “Resource” cannot be migrated and will need to be re-added manually. |
| Dependencies | Dependencies will not be migrated if projects are missing from the Destination PWA. |
| External Links in Quick Launch | External Links in Quick Launch will be migrated as-is. Manual adjustments might be required after the migration (e.g. for Power BI Apps links). |
| Enterprise calendars | Migration of Enterprise calendars is supported. However, the migration of Work Weeks settings in the calendars for resources is not currently supported. |
| Workflow stage | The migration of Workflow stages is supported. However, the date in the Entry Time, Completion Time fields for Workflow stages will be set to the migration date. |
Please note: The migration of workflows and solutions developed in Visual Studio is not supported.
2. Projects Content
Due to the reduction in available functionality in the CSOM API provided by Microsoft in July-August 2016, migration of the following project-related entities is not supported:
| Project-related Entity | Support Notes |
| Project Timelines | Project Timelines created in the Source PWA will need to be manually re-created in the Destination PWA. Project Timelines created in Project Professional will be migrated for project schedules as part of *mpp files (if Project Timeline was edited in PWA and any tasks were added to timeline, they will not be migrated, as they are not being saved to *mpp file). |
| Project Owners for Master Projects |
Project Owners for Master Projects will be set to the migration account.
Project Owners for Standard & Subprojects will be migrated correctly if the corresponding user account is available in the Destination PWA and settings were selected correctly during upload.
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| Status Managers for Master Projects | Status Managers for Master Projects will be set to the migration account. There is a workaround to set Status Manager for Master projects described in this article. Status Managers for Standard & Subprojects will be migrated correctly if the corresponding user account is available in the Destination PWA and settings were selected correctly during upload, except for tasks that have cost resources assigned – for such tasks Status Manager will be set to the migration account. |
| Status Managers for Summary Tasks | Status Managers for Summary Tasks in Standard & Subprojects will be set to the migration account. |
| Assignment level custom field project data | Migration of custom fields data on an assignment level is not supported |
| Migration of custom fields values to Project Summary Tasks | Migration of custom fields values to Project Summary Tasks is not supported. |
| Migration of Rejected and Draft Resource Engagements | Only Resource Engagements, which have a Committed or Proposed state are migrated. Draft and Rejected Engagements will not be transferred. |
| Local Formula custom fields | Relates only to the Local Formula custom fields where Formulas link to Enterprise custom fields. FluentBooks uses Project Professional for Local fields migration. After migration Formulas in the Local custom fields can contain wrong links to the Enterprise custom fields as Project Professional uses its internal IDs for Enterprise Custom Fields, instead of their names or UIDs. Those IDs are assigned to the Enterprise fields automatically on their creation. Numbering always starts with one and the same number and follows the order. And it can happen that an ID of the same field in the source and the target can differ since the fields in the source and in the target were created in different order. |
| Project Workflow History | Linking of the Workflow History list items to the project workflow (to preserve workflow history) is not supported for migration starting from Project Server 2016 and higher. |
Please note: Migration of the "Created" OOB Project Field ("Created Date") values is not supported in FluentBooks. It is a system read-only field and its value cannot be updated either manually or programmatically. The date of Project migration will be set as Project Created date (FluentBooks performs project upload through API, so in fact, a project is created in Project Online on the day of migration).
Please note: During the migration of projects FluentBooks requires the Microsoft Project Desktop application installed. The version of Project Desktop should correspond to the version of the PWA it connects to. Project Desktop should have the English locale. Also please make sure that the Project Desktop is configured to start with the default account without any dialogs and is activated.
3. SharePoint Content
Migration of the following SharePoint entities is not supported:
| SharePoint Entity | Support Notes |
| Custom SharePoint solutions and/or web parts | Migration is not supported due to changes in architecture in Project Online. |
| SharePoint web parts | Only filters between the web parts are not supported (the 'Get filter values from' setting). |
| Site/Site Collection Features | Only Feature Status is migrated, given that the Feature exists in the Destination PWA. The features enabled on the source (Active) will be enabled on the target PWA by FluentBooks during migration. |
| Managed Copies of files in Document Libraries | |
| Regional Settings | |
| Enterprise Metadata | |
| Document Libraries Files which have no checked-in version | |
| SharePoint workflows created not in SharePoint Designer | Migration of third-party workflows is not supported |
| Project Server 2010 Site Templates | Project Server 2010 Site Templates are not supported in Project Online, therefore, will need to be re-created in Project Online. |
| “Microfeed” List | Migration of the specified list is not supported |
| SharePoint Libraries | Migration of Created By, Modified By, Created Date, Modified Date column values for folders in SharePoint Libraries |
| SharePoint Documents | "Document ID" field values are not preserved if the document version history option is selected for migration and a document has more than one version. |
| Migration of SharePoint Survey Items | Migration of Survey item is not supported in case the account of the user who completed the survey does not exist n target PWA |
| Top Link Bar (Links & Settings) | |
| Lists (OOB, Custom) | Migration of list item ID´s is not supported. Migration of the list item versions is supported. If there are users in the Multi Person Columns fields of the list/document items and there is a semicolon (;) sign in the user name, such users will not be migrated. If the list versions are not in order on the source (for example, a few versions were deleted and there are versions number 1,2,4,7), the numbering will change on the target to be in order (1,2,3,4). |
| SharePoint Workflows for Project Online |
SharePoint 2013 workflow will be turned off by Microsoft for new tenants as of April 2, 2024, and for all tenants as of April 2, 2026. Thus, the SharePoint 2013 Workflows will not be supported for migration to Project Online. |
Please note that Solutions (Templates from Project Server 2010) cannot be migrated directly. The following article provides a workaround allowing to migrate Solutions from Project Server 2010 to Project Server 2013, Project Server 2016 or Project Online.
4. Other
Migration of the following entities is not supported:
| Entity | Support Notes |
| All kinds of reports that use a database connection |
Only reports that use OData will be migrated.
However, OData connections created using Power Pivot will be migrated as is, without processing the URLs inside.
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| SSRS Reports | SSRS Reports are not supported in Project Online. |
Please note: Power BI reports will need to be adjusted manually when migrating to a different Project Online tenant.
5. Timesheets Content
Timesheets Migration is provided as a service. Please contact sales@fluentpro.com to get assistance with such migration.
6. Support preserving GUID from a Source PWA when creating an object in a Destination PWA using FluentBooks
Please note: The table below applies only to the case when object/entity is created by FluentBooks, GUID for object/entity that already exists in the Destination PWA cannot be updated.
| Project Server Object | GUID from Source preserved |
| Project | Yes |
| Task | No |
| Assignment | No |
| Project Plan Template | No |
| Custom Field | Yes |
| Lookup Table | Yes |
| Enterprise Calendar | Yes |
| Enterprise Project Type | Yes |
| Project Detail Page | No |
| Workflow Phase | Yes |
| Workflow Stage | Yes |
| Resource | Yes1 |
| User | Yes |
| Security Group | Yes |
| Security Category | Yes |
| Security Template | Yes |
| Timesheet | Yes |
| Timesheet Line | Yes |
| Timesheet Period | Yes |
| Fiscal Period | Yes |
| View | No |
| Project Site Template | Yes |
| All SharePoint Related Content GUIDs | No |
| Project Site | No |
| Issue | No |
| Risk | No |
| Deliverable | No |
| List | No |
| Document | No |
Please note: Project Server 2010/2013/2016 and Project Online do not allow duplicates - Projects/Custom Fields/Resources with identical Names or GUIDs. As FluentBooks ensures data integrity, Projects/Custom Fields/Resources with identical Names or GUID details will be matched by Name or GUID. As a result, an update of discrepancies will take place on a target PWA.
References:
1 By default, Resource GUIDs are not preserved. To preserve Resource GUIDs, clear the ‘Do not preserve Resource UID’ checkbox. For more information, please refer to the article.
Project Professional desktop compatibility chart
This table describes the migration scenario (your source and target systems), the Project Professional version that is recommended to be installed on the first virtual machine (to download data from the source PWA), and the second virtual machine (to upload data to the target PWA).
| Source and target systems | VM 1 Project Pro | VM 2 Project Pro |
| PS 2010 > PS 2019 | 2010 | 2016/2019 |
| PS 2010 > Online | 2010 | 2016/2019/Project Online Desktop client (recommended version) |
| PS 2013 > PS 2019 | 2013/2016 | 2016/2019 |
| PS 2013 > Online | 2013 (recommended) 2016 (not recommended) |
2016/Project Online Desktop client (recommended) |
| PS 2016 > PS 2019 | 2016/2019 | 2016/2019 |
| PS 2016 > Online | 2016/2019/Project Online Desktop client | Project Online Desktop client |
| PS 2019 > Online |
2019/Project Online Desktop client | Project Online Desktop client |
| Online > Online | Project Online Desktop client |
Project Online Desktop client |
Please note: It is possible to install the 2010/2013 version of Project Pro and Project Online Desktop client version on one VM starting from the older version. This will work only if both versions are 64-bit.
Also, if the migration is from PS 2016/2019/ Project Online to Project Online, only one VM can be used for migration with the Project Online Desktop client installed.