Export a project to Microsoft Project

Clients, main contractors and PMOs still work in Microsoft Project, and a schedule you cannot hand them is a schedule you cannot put in a contract. Any Onplana project downloads as an MS Project XML file that opens natively in Microsoft Project, on every plan including Free.

Export

1. In the project header, open the ⋯ menu.

2. Choose Share or export, then Export MS Project in the list that opens beside it.

3. The file downloads as <project name>.xml. Open it in Microsoft Project.

What survives

	How it arrives
WBS hierarchy	Full depth. Parents stay parents, subtasks stay under them, in your order.
Dependencies	Type and lag preserved. A finish-to-start link with 3 days lag arrives as one.
Milestones	Flagged as milestones, not zero-length tasks.
Resources	Matched to the people assigned in Onplana, with their assignments.
Progress	Percent complete per task.
Costs	Planned, fixed and baseline.
Notes	From each task’s description.
Priorities	Mapped onto the 0 to 1000 scale Microsoft Project uses.
Custom fields	In Microsoft Project’s own field slots (Text1, Number1, Date1, Flag1 and so on), under their Onplana names, with every task’s value. A choice list keeps its choices.

What does not

	Effect
Working calendar	Microsoft Project applies its own default: Monday to Friday, no holidays.
Task constraints	“Start no earlier than” and similar are not carried.
Deadlines	Not carried.
Multi-select fields	Not carried: a Project file has no slot that holds one. Nor is a field past the last slot of its type (30 text, 20 number, 10 date, 20 yes or no).

The file holds fixed dates, not a calendar

Every task arrives with its exact start and finish, so the plan opens looking exactly as it does in Onplana. The difference only shows if you reschedule inside Microsoft Project: change a duration there and it will schedule across days your Onplana calendar treats as non-working.

If the file is something to read, this does not affect you. If someone will edit it and expects your holidays to hold, say so, or set the calendar up on their side first.

Which export

You want	Use
A file for Microsoft Project	Export MS Project
A spreadsheet of the task list	Export Excel
The plan inside Planner or To Do	Export to Microsoft

All three sit under Share or export in the ⋯ menu, on every plan.

If it fails

Message	What to do
More than 20,000 tasks	The conversion runs in one request. Export a phase or sub-project instead.
Export service unavailable	The converter is a separate service and was briefly down. Try again in a minute.
Anything else	Ours, not yours. Report it with the flag icon in the header so we can see which project.

Related

• Import from Microsoft Project, the same road back.
• Import a WBS from Excel or CSV if your plan lives in a spreadsheet.