Microsoft Project Migration: Move Work Without Losing History

List tasks, dependencies, resources, baselines, and reports in the current source (Sheets, another work OS, or email). Mark each: migrate live, archive as files, or drop. 1. Count live vs stale items — stale work should not become “To do” in Microsoft Project.

1. Capture owners, dates, comments, and attachments as first-class — not as a notes dump.
2. Write the exclusions: personal lists, duplicate boards, and the wrong job cluster (a lightweight kanban or a docs wiki). Worked example: Harbor PMO (construction-style schedule owners) inventories 14 spreadsheets and migrates two production boards. The rest become a read-only archive folder.

Build a field map: source column → Microsoft Project property → transform → owner. 1. Owners must resolve to real users, not free-text names.

1. Status values must match the lists you will actually use.
2. Dates and timezones need an explicit rule.
3. Comments/files either attach or get a documented “not migrating” label. Worked example: Harbor PMO (construction-style schedule owners) refuses to import until 20 sample rows survive the map without a mystery column.

Import one site, one role, one client, or one squad. Then run build one schedule with predecessors, resource names, and a baseline a sponsor can read on the pilot set. 1. Import, then immediately a planner updates percent-complete and a sponsor sees the shifted finish date.

1. Ask a sceptic user to find “their” items without help.
2. Time how long a manager takes to answer “what is late?”
3. Fix the map before the next batch. Worked example: Harbor PMO (construction-style schedule owners) will not schedule a cutover until the pilot can a planner updates percent-complete and a sponsor sees the shifted finish date.

Run old and new in parallel for a week. Spot-check records sceptic users care about, then freeze the legacy source. 1. Dual-run rules: Microsoft Project is the write path; the old sheet is read-only after day 3 if the pilot held.

1. Daily: five sceptic spot-checks (late items, owners, attachments).
2. Connect remaining integrations only after the pilot week. Research names Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, Power Automate, and Azure Devops on the Microsoft Project side — confirm the connectors your work loop depends on.
3. Cut over on a quiet day — not month-end reporting. Worked example: Harbor PMO (construction-style schedule owners) keeps the old export until Microsoft Project matches for seven consecutive days, then revokes edit access on the spreadsheet.