Microsoft Project Reviews

When I was still in the pre-sales team, I used MS Project to manage the projects that we engage with the client. We use it and are not selling it. 

The solution is stable. 

We can scale the solution as needed. 

Technical support needs improvement. It's hard to reach technical people to get the help you need.

I've used the solution for two to three years. 

The stability is good. there are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable, and I find the performance to be good.

I was able to scale on my project and never had any issues with scaling. 

We had four people on the sales and pre-sales team using it. 

I've dealt with Microsoft's technical support a lot. Often, there were delays. It was very hard to get someone technical involved when we had issues. I have to say that I was not particularly satisfied with the level of service they provided to us. 

I did not previously use a different product. This was the only solution provided to me by my company. I had no other choice for using other products. 

I'm not sure how the setup was. I just used it. It was already on my laptop, and I just started using it for my work, so I can't speak to how it was implemented or how long it took to do so. My understanding is that you don't need a lot of people to handle the installation process.

I'm not sure what the licensing costs were. I never handled that aspect of the solution. 

I was an end-user of the product.

Overall, I would recommend the solution to others to use. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

We use it for the Gantt functionality. We can do project schedules and use the WBS piece to break down the work. We are able to generate reports for leadership to show project schedules, milestone schedules, etc.

It is installed on the desktop. It is not connected to the project server or anything like that. 

Being able to get a milestone schedule or a breakdown out of it is valuable. It can integrate into Visio, which is helpful.

Its user interface could be a little bit more intuitive. Not everybody has the luxury of going to training and understanding which button does what and the functionality. The user interface should be improved to make it a little bit more intuitive. It is not user-friendly. I've dealt with it for a number of years, so it is not hard for me to figure it out, but you would need a quick reference guide or something to say, "Here are the basics. This is how you do X."

I have been using this solution for about five or six years.

It is stable.

I haven't contacted them.

It takes a while to build, but it will probably depend on the project size and all the dependencies. So, it isn't exactly straightforward, but it also depends on the size of the project or the scope of the project.

It is pretty straightforward. There isn't anything heavy about it.

I would rate it an eight out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution is to help plan the work and implementation plans for our projects.

I find all the features of the solution valuable.

The solution is currently a bit slow and can be faster.

I have been using the solution for one year.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

Before switching to this solution I used online tools to help with our project implementations and monitoring tasks.

I believe the licensing for the solution is based on an annual fee.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

We have over ten people in our IT project department that currently use this solution.

I recommend the solution to everyone.

We primarily use the solution for project management. For example, IT implementation projects. 

The Gantt chart view is great. It shows all activities, and the planning of durations is very easy. We can see our suppliers and everything. 

The solution is stable.

It's scalable.

It doesn't really work too well on a Mac.

The initial setup was a bit complex. I find the setup a little bit cumbersome. Sometimes there are certain rules that automatically update something else, and it's not always visible. When that happens, you are left with a surprise.

I've used the solution for six years. 

The solution seems to be stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

With some assistance, it is possible to scale the product.

We have around 1,000 people using it in our company.

I have not used technical support and therefore cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they would be if you needed help.

I have used other products in the past.

The initial setup was a bit complex. It wasn't overly simple. 

The licensing is handled centrally within the company. I don't have any visibility on the pricing aspect. I can't say how much it costs our organization precisely.

I have evaluated other products. 

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using. I don't know the version number off-hand. 

I'd recommend the solution. I find it to be quite useful, especially for waterfall-type projects.

I would rate it seven out of ten.

The most useful feature is to link sub-tasks to the main group.

The setup is pretty simple. 

It is stable, and the performance is good.

It can scale well. 

What could have been better is the integration with Office 365 so that if you're discussing a project on Teams or there's an email related to the project, it can be tagged to the project in Microsoft Project. That functionality is currently not there.

The solution is pretty expensive. However, you pay for what you get, and it is worth the cost.

I've been working with the solution for more than ten years now. 

It is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. The performance is good. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is absolutely scalable. It's not a problem to expand the product. 

We are a small consulting firm. We have only four users at the moment.

I've had no issues with the level of service provided by support. They are helpful and responsive. We always get an immediate response. 

Positive

We have worked with Jira.

We always knew that Microsoft Project is the most comprehensive option. Although our clients are using multiple different platforms, we tend to integrate all those outputs into our Microsoft Project installation.

The product has a simple, straightforward implementation process. It's not overly complex. 

The pricing is pretty high. I'd rate it two out of five in terms of affordability. 

We are customers and end-users. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

I would recommend it for companies that have a large number of projects and diversified teams. When I say diversified teams, I mean geographically spread and working on multiple projects. Those are the kind of people who could make use of Microsoft Project very well.

We're using Microsoft Project on multiple tiers to perform inventory optimization, production planning, and purchasing.st built the project a week ago using Microsoft Project from start to finish. We built in all the functionality we have to cover. All the updates, action items, etc., are in there.

In my previous position with a leading 3PL, the provider of our warehouse management system, Blue Yonder, used Project. Nevertheless, it was seamless to integrate a Project file because Smartsheet offers the ability to upload MPP files. But at the same time, we would make changes and adjustments with Project. I'm currently using Microsoft Project for all my projects. 

Microsoft Project's integrated timeline is tied to the project plan almost seamlessly, and you add whatever action item or milestone you choose. All you have to do is set up a column and click on the timeline. It will automatically put it in there and allow you to choose the type, whether it's a bar or if it's a milestone, just pointing out that single milestone.

With Smartsheets, we can easily integrate and allow users outside the company to access our files. We can manage their access directly inside the project plan. I can allow my customers to jump on there to see the project while limiting their access to certain sheets or views. If I want I can allow them to view, edit, or share it. 

Microsoft Project has similar functionality, but I can't just give them a link. We have to bring them into using a company server because that's where we have it stored. There are more steps and assigning permissions is more convoluted.

The stability is generally good, but it's affected by the sharing aspect because you have to utilize OneDrive, Teams, or SharePoint. The stability is heavily tied to how quickly it saves the MPP file. If there's a processing gap when you're saving the project, it'll end up creating another edition. It typically uses your user ID  and tags it, but the original will still be there, and it may not have the changes. When you start to use it with additional users, the stability in terms of saving is reduced. It's maybe a five out of 10 for stability in that sense. 

Project is not as easy to scale. It isn't a cloud-based solution where everybody can utilize it at the same time without version issues when you save your file. We use it at the enterprise level, but you have to share the files with others within your organization through Teams or SharePoint. One improvement would be to transition to cloud-based functionality. However, that might limit the functionality in other ways. 

I haven't used Microsoft support for Project because I have enough experience that I don't need to. However, I have contacted Microsoft support recently to as questions about Excel. You can't pick up a phone and call them. Instead, you initiate a chat session on their website, and they will call you back in some cases.  

It may be because Smartsheets doesn't have the same global user base, but their problem-solving is fantastic, whereas Microsoft support seems a little convoluted.

The installation is easy. Setting up a project takes a little bit longer. It's not as intuitive as Smartsheets, but it's relatively easy. You have to have a base knowledge to use either product, but I would rate Smartsheets eight out of 10 for ease of use, while Microsoft Project is maybe five out of 10 because it's not as intuitive. 

It depends on the scale, but in some instances, the licensing was around $600 per user.

I rate Microsoft Project seven out of 10. 

It is easy to define timelines with Microsoft Project. You can get a clear picture of the model, you want to create.  You can create inside an agile or waterfall model. Microsoft Project is easy to delegate tasks to different members where you want to put the task and who you want to work on it so that you have a clear path.

Right now you can create a timeline with the major up tasks, but there's no real way to mark it. When you are planning, you usually have resources on board for a single task.  Microsoft Project has no way to mark it because it is based more on agile methodology. Many times you want to take it by the resource count and that is where it becomes tricky. 

 I would like to see an entire baseline, like in JIRA. It is like project planning in JIRA, but there's a whole story building that you can do. Microsoft Project needs to incorporate some points of story-building and epic building, which are currently missing. 

I have been working with Microsoft Project for the past month.

Microsoft Project is a stable solution.

There is no problem with Microsoft Project's scalability.

I do not use Microsoft technical support because our company has its own technical support team.

I only use a login feature for Microsoft Project. 

I would rate Microsoft Project an eight and a half out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for portfolio management, project management, and program management. It is also used for reporting to leadership on a portfolio level.

It gives the enterprise and leadership the visibility of what's going on with their enterprise. It provides visibility to all the projects that are going on within the company.

The integration between SharePoint and Power BI has been great.

The stability is good.

You can scale the solution as needed. 

We need more integration with Microsoft Teams and other collaboration tools.

The product could be more user-friendly in some areas. 

I've used the solution for a while. I've used it over the last 12 months at least. 

The stability is pretty good. It's easy to use and reliable. 

The solution can scale. It can scale for a company that's dealing with a medium-size company dealing with 10 to 20 projects, all the way to the large companies dealing with hundreds of projects it's very scalable.

We've got the technology department using the product. We also have businesses using it as well. We have a total of 100 plus people that are using it today in our company.

The solution is being used extensively. We do have plans on working with a third party to potentially make the solution even more user-friendly.

I haven't used their technical support, however, I've partnered up with Microsoft Partners to come up with potential future solutions.

Before Microsoft Project Online, we just used Microsoft Project Desktop and we utilized Microsoft SharePoint to create lists in order to create portfolio trackers and project trackers that way. We needed a more robust solution that can track risk management, budgetary prioritization, et cetera. Microsoft Project does that for us.

The setup can be both complex and easy. I'd rate it 3.5 out of five, with five being an easy setup.

Deployment involves usually implementing the new tools and then adopting and having people use it. Implementation took about three months and then the adoption took another six to eight to nine months of training and making sure people use the tool.

We have admins and that's one or two folks that can handle any maintenance requirements. It's not a high-maintenance product.

We had a consultant assist us with the implementation.

We've seen an ROI from the aspect of efficiencies and having information in one central location. We've cut time in reporting. We've cut time in the administration portion as well, of setting up projects so there's been efficiency. We hope the ROI might expand as we use it more.

I'm not aware of what the licensing costs are. There might be extra costs associated with maintenance. 

While it is my understanding that we did look at other solutions, I was not part of that tendering process. I don't know which ones were vetted.

We're a customer and end-user.

I'd advise potential new users to make sure they select a tool that will be useful to the end-user. This tool is really catered to project managers, while the majority of the folks who are executing projects are not what I call professional project managers.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Whenever we have a client with a complicated situation, we create a project plan. And we use Microsoft Project (MS Project) for administrating, monitoring, and tracking the project.  For most small projects, MS Project is satisfactory.

We can input information and then share it with the project team and stakeholders. That helps a little, but if somebody changes their mind, it could change how we manage the project. There are some new features in MS Project 2024. However, more features aren't necessarily useful because now you must train people to use them. They may say, "Why do I need this new feature?" Newer versions of MS Project display a warning when a task runs behind schedule. However, it is necessary to input a date change for that warning manually, and administrative action takes precious time.

It's possible to get input from other programs, such as Outlook, but we don't use Outlook for anything other than email, even though it could do other things. Time is a critical resource. We don't have time to learn about these features and use them productively, so they are of no value to us.

MS Project's resource leveling capability is beneficial. We like this feature. We want to be able to expand tasks and look at different resources and task usage. It is good at assigning tasks to teams.

It's generally compliant with the Project Management Institute approach to project management, which means MS Project helps us be more uniform and consistent in conducting each project.

MS Project can insert objects, like a drawing or an Excel worksheet, but cannot handle business rules. Also, I would like to see better integration with graphics applications such as MS Visio. The graphics are primitive and need some major work. I would like to have the ability to insert some small macros within the project for Monte Carlo risk analysis. For example, if you're unsure how much time a task may require, you can generate a reasonable guess.

MS Project is very time and labor-intensive to keep current. You need to update it continually. You may find that you are spending more time maintaining the MS Project file than working on your project. I don't want to devote a person to do that.

MS Project should have the capability to link it to other applications to make the program dynamic when a real-time resource or schedule changes, but it is not dynamic. It would be helpful to insert real-time input data for each project, subproject, or task. If something is going on, I want to see the impact in real-time, if possible.

I want to be able to specify globally what weekend we want or what we want to call a weekend. Also, we might have a project underway seven days a week.

External data sources, like third-party manufacturing processes, impact some tasks. Embedding external processes within MS Project is almost impossible because we don't have programming resources here in a practical sense. Also, the interface of Microsoft Project is proprietary. We want to link different tasks to external sources of inputs and outputs and integrate them automatically with our master project plan, e.g., specific third-party CNC machine data. The supplier's system does not interface with ours'. We have to get the outputs from their system serially and manually update the MS Project file to determine the schedule impact. That takes time. There is a risk of data entry errors at both ends. On tight projects, every minute counts.

I would like to see a control system interface with Microsoft Project. Real-time system data helps predict cost and schedule variances. For example, if you had to finish a day ahead of schedule, you could "talk" to the systems' software and determine if a given machine works for another four hours, then you could meet the accelerated schedule. MS Project requires manual data entry with a risk of mistakes. Presently, there is no automated data entry capability in MS Project. It just doesn't exist. That's why I say it is only suitable for small-sized to medium-sized companies and small projects. Most companies don't have the same problems we have with MS Project.

When you're working on a project that has to get done, you will spend most of the time wrestling with Microsoft Project, whereas you should be using these hours to manage the project.

Thinking on a slightly bigger scale, I would like better integration with Office, Visio, and Access. If you make a change in one application, it should cascade to others and vice versa. It doesn't do that, at least not easily. It is not a dynamic program. I would like to see an active program or at least the capability to be dynamic, even if it is close to real-time where it outputs to a module, and the module then talks to real-time systems. The real-time data goes back into the module, and the module updates the project plan. Such dynamic capability would be superior to what exists now. It may not be genuinely real-time, but it is at least closer to it.

I want to link directly to the data in an Excel spreadsheet so that I don't have to keep going back and forth updating it. I don't want to have to create a dynamic link library or write a macro. Whenever I change the data in an Excel file for a given project or task, it should update the corresponding Visio or PowerPoint file. If I'm doing a pie chart or any graphic, I don't want to manually update my graphics. I want to link them together, and I want them updated automatically. I know it is a wishful thing. Microsoft doesn't make significant changes every time they come out with a new version. However, they don't appear to fix the issue. Instead, they add a few features.

I have been using Microsoft Project since it was released in the mid-1980s. Although MS Project can be helpful, it does not teach project management.

It's relatively stable. I've never had a crash. I can't remember it ever crashing. If I  entered some information that it can't resolve, it usually comes up with an error message.

I think it is limited to around 400,000 tasks. I am not sure. I never had to go that far. We have five consultants who are remote users.

I've never really needed any support. When Microsoft has a seminar or a meeting locally, I might go to it and give my feedback.

Neutral

Installation is automatic and simple, we had no issues.

The implementation was done in-house.

MS Project pays for itself by helping me keep my thinking straight.  The purchase price of the application is insignificant when compared with the time involved in trying to do project management manually on paper attached to large poster boards. We did it that way before the advent of PCs.  There is some benefit to seeing an entire project plan on paper to provide a visual idea of project scope and progress, but intelligent use of MS Project can generate the same information.  It takes a lot of time to become so proficient with MS Project that these key bits of information are generated automatically through accurate and complete task definitions, WBS, and project schedule updates.

Make sure you have a good business reason for purchasing MS Project. It isn't cheap and there are free alternatives, with simple capabilities, available.

MS Project was sufficient for our requirements, so we did not evaluate any other options.

Make sure you understand what MS Project can do and what it cannot do. It cannot read your mind. Just like any other program, it only does what you tell it to do. If you give it the wrong information, it will provide you with incorrect output. It is very labor-intensive. There are minimal capabilities to help you write routines. So, you have to change dates and task names. If you don't understand project management concepts well, you're just going to delude yourself into thinking MS Project helps you. You have to understand the process of project management to use the application effectively. Otherwise, you are wasting your time. It will not teach you how to do project management.

I would rate MS Project a five out of ten because it hasn't evolved that much. Microsoft added lots of bells and whistles, but they don't add much new value. They don't save me much time. I want MS Project to be a dynamic program, but it remains a passive program after more than 30 years. I've made comments about it at some seminars hosted by Microsoft. We've told them to make it a dynamic program or at least have an option to make it active. We would be willing to pay more for this capability. It's worth it, but they don't do it. I guess they don't see enough business potential in doing it that way, and I don't have the resources to create an internal application to make it that way. I am not in that business.

We use Microsoft Project for its timeline and task management capabilities. The primary advantage is the easy application of tasks in sequence, confirming dependencies, and establishing relationships between tasks. It simplifies handling conditions, significant dates, and dependencies between various tasks.

The tool's most valuable feature is scheduling. 

Microsoft Project's reporting is very complex and not user-friendly. 

I have been working with the product for ten years. 

I rate the tool's stability a nine out of ten. 

The tool's deployment is very straightforward. 

I rate Microsoft Project's pricing a five out of ten. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten.