Microsoft has confirmed that Project Online, its cloud-based project and portfolio management service, will be retired on 30 September 2026. This is a hard stop, not a gradual wind-down. After that date, Project Online and the data inside it will no longer be accessible.
If your organisation runs its projects in Project Online, that deadline matters. Anything you have not exported or migrated by then, including your project sites, is lost. This article explains what is changing, what is at risk, and the practical options for getting your data out safely.
What exactly is retiring
It is worth being precise, because the names are easy to confuse. The product being retired is Microsoft Project Online, the cloud service built on SharePoint Online and usually accessed through Project Web App (PWA). On-premises Project Server, Project desktop and Microsoft Planner are not affected. In fact, on-premises Project Server Subscription Edition remains supported, which makes it a valid place to move to.
The timeline
Microsoft has staged the retirement across a few milestones. Sales of Project Online to new customers ended on 1 October 2025. From April 2026, new tenants can no longer be created and certain SharePoint workflows are decommissioned. The final retirement date is 30 September 2026, after which access ends.
What is at risk
When Project Online closes, several things go with it: your projects and their data, the SharePoint and PWA project sites attached to them, custom fields, workflows and reporting, and the historical records you may need for audit or compliance. For organisations in regulated sectors, or any business that needs a defensible record of past work, losing that history is a serious problem.
Your options
Broadly, there are two practical destinations for organisations that want to keep control of their data rather than being pushed into a new cloud tool.
The first is a secure local archive. Your projects, project sites and data are exported and preserved as a structured archive on your own storage. This is ideal for record keeping, audit and compliance, and it keeps everything fully under your control.
The second is a new on-premises Project Server. Because Project Server Subscription Edition is still supported, you can migrate into an on-premises environment where your teams keep working with the tools they already know, on your own network, with no forced move to the cloud.
Why acting early matters
Larger providers often quote migrations at six to twenty weeks, and the closer you get to the deadline, the more compressed and expensive the work becomes. Starting early gives you time to confirm exactly what needs to move, agree the destination, and validate the result before the cutoff.
Anything you have not exported or migrated before 30 September 2026 is gone. The safe window is now.
A note on data protection
If your project data contains personal information, the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) still applies to how it is handled during a migration. A good migration is done securely, ideally within your own network so that your data never leaves your environment, and under the appropriate confidentiality terms.
How TFAP can help
At Tech For African Problems we migrate organisations off Project Online to a secure local archive or a new on-premises Project Server, in as little as one week from the point at which access and setup are complete. We sign NDAs, prefer to work within your internal network so your data stays inside your organisation, and can either run the migration for you or guide your own team through it. We work remotely across the globe, and on-site where required.