Project Online Alternative: Why cplace Is the Best Solution for the Transition
November 10, 2025 | 6 min
Microsoft Project Online will be discontinued on September 30, 2026. The US company officially announced this at the beginning of September 2025. Many companies are affected by the discontinuation of Project Online and are now forced to search for an alternative. They do not have much time to find and install a suitable solution for project and portfolio management.
In order to replace Project Online as quickly and easily as possible, many companies begin their search within the Microsoft product range. The success of this search depends largely on two factors: the extent of the customizations made in Project Online and the overall requirements for a PPM solution.
The more standard, the easier to replace
The less a company has customized the outgoing tool to its needs, the easier it is to find a quick and simple solution in the Microsoft world. For example, migrating to Microsoft Project Server SE with Project Desktop is a fairly simple and quick solution. In practice, however, such standard installations are rare.
Project Online is a tool that is very outdated in terms of functionality and essentially only supports classic methods. The customizations in Project Online are correspondingly extensive. The necessary adjustments, without which the tool can hardly be used effectively, cannot be easily transferred to the MS world. This involves costs whose scope must be carefully analyzed and estimated. Even if the license costs may be manageable, the costs for system customizations and the resulting dependence on the service provider—usually in combination with expensive maintenance contracts—should not be underestimated.
Project Online has long been a legacy tool
When Project Online was introduced in 2013, it was intended to enable companies to use cloud-based project and portfolio management. In conjunction with SharePoint and MS Project, Project Online became the central tool for planning and controlling initiatives for many organizations. With the spread of agile methods in project management, the weaknesses of this constellation became apparent. Everyday project work is hybrid, but Project Online only supports traditional methods and has not undergone any meaningful innovations recently. This also applies to portfolio management, for which Project Online is frequently used.
In terms of usability, Project Online had also long passed its zenith. Instead of collaboration, ease of use, and agility, users were faced with the rigidity of a tool that could only be operated by experts, frustration in its application, and a Highlander principle (there can only be one) that nipped creative collaboration in the bud.
Accordingly, most companies are using the end of Project Online as an opportunity to fundamentally modernize their project management.
Webinar On Demand: The End of Project Online
In English
In this webinar, learn how you can use the end of Project Online to take your project management to the next level.
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The Following Points Are Particularly Important When Searching for a Professional PPM Solution
Adaptability—My Projects, My Rules
Companies are tired of having to comply with external standards. Instead, they are looking for a solution that can reflect and support their project management processes. The adaptability of a solution also defines how future-proof it is.
Mix of Methods
Different projects require different approaches. A modern solution supports classic, agile, and hybrid approaches. Otherwise, it pushes users into shadow IT and encourages planning in Excel and other tools.
User-Friendliness
A PPM solution can only deliver value to the company if it is used intensively. To be used effectively, it must offer added value to every user. Modern usability and individual workspaces are indispensable in this context.
IT Integration
Projects are at the heart of companies. Accordingly, a PPM solution must integrate into the existing IT landscape to create synergies. It must also meet all compliance requirements.
cplace: The Smart Project Online-Alternative
cplace has established itself as the PPM platform for complex project environments and has proven its worth. Due to its easy adaptability, cplace is particularly useful in large companies where a binding standard needs to be established while at the same time the habits and individual requirements of individual departments must be considered. This flexibility is standard with cplace and is achieved based on low-code and no-code customizations.
A holistic approach to project management
Project management encompasses many disciplines, from demand management, scheduling, resource management, and risk management to cost and budget planning and strategic portfolio management. cplace provides companies with suitable, powerful, and proven solution modules for all areas and every level of maturity.
Citizen development—easy implementation of customizations
Individual departments within the customer’s organization can implement the various solutions themselves using no-code and low-code, without the help of the IT department. They assemble the modules like building blocks or use ready-made, ready-to-use components. The result is a solution platform that precisely meets the requirements of the individual departments.
Review: cplace Day 2025
Keynote speech, panel discussion, and customer presentations
cplace Day 2025, Europe’s largest PPM conference, once again offered exciting insights into the topic of project and portfolio management.
Learn from different perspectives how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing project and portfolio management, and how successful companies are taking their PPM to a new level with cplace.
Click here for the recordings
Translating corporate strategy into projects
With cplace, successful companies translate their strategy into initiatives and implement them efficiently. cplace’s strategic portfolio management ensures that investments and resources are allocated to the projects that best realize the corporate vision. Organizations receive a data-based foundation for secure and quick decisions, even at the project portfolio level. Thanks to clear dashboards, roadmaps, and reports, companies can find the initiatives that bring them the greatest benefit.
As a PPM platform, cplace offers different perspectives with the appropriate KPIs for projects, programs, portfolios, and resource utilization within the company. Depending on the desired perspective and stakeholder requirements, KPIs are aggregated in customized reports and dashboards and prepared in a role-specific manner.
Greater benefits through high acceptance
The benefits of an enterprise solution depend heavily on user acceptance. With cplace, companies can adapt individual applications to the specific needs of users and teams without any programming knowledge. Basic functions are provided in the form of familiar solution elements such as Gantt charts, Kanban boards, wikis, tables, and graphics. This noticeably increases user acceptance and promotes rapid familiarization.
At the same time, different users in cplace get a work environment tailored to their role. For example, the workspace for project management offers different views and applications than the workspace for team members or management. Everyone involved works with the same data, which is prepared specifically for their role. This makes cplace a one-stop shop for company-wide project and portfolio management.
Single source of truth
The various solution components, such as scheduling and resource planning, risk management, and portfolio management, are based on a holistic platform where all information converges into a single source of truth.
Through interfaces and connectors, cplace integrates seamlessly into the existing IT landscape to intelligently link data. This not only promotes efficiency in project management but also opens up new perspectives and insights.
cplace AI—Versatile Project Support
cplace AI offers concrete support for practical applications:
Chat & Companion
The natural language interface can be accessed anywhere in cplace and acts as a personal AI assistant.
Assistants & Agents
From reactive support to proactive automation, this specialized PPM persona understands the methodology used and acts independently on request.
Citizen AI
Customized low-code and no-code adaptations can be implemented even more easily with AI support.
MCP
Customers connect cplace with the AI platform of their choice and use the shared tool ecosystem for seamless integration into the entire AI landscape.
Builder
In the future, AI will support the creation of data models and layouts. Thanks to intelligent automation and guided configuration, entire cplace solutions will soon be able to be developed.
In our business, we depend on perfect ‘time to performance’, which means positioning the most efficient product in the market at exactly the right time because tires are seasonal business. cplace gives us excellent support in achieving this.
Migration Roadmap
Ready-to-use solution modules, AI support, user-centricity, a variety of methods, and easy adaptability ensure that companies can quickly benefit from cplace. It doesn’t matter which departments start using cplace to make their project management more efficient and easier.
Phase 1: Analysis & Planning
- Inventory of your Project Online environment and points of criticism
- Identification of important adjustments
- Development of a customized migration strategy
- Realistic transition planning
Phase 2: cplace Configuration & Setup
- Configuration according to individual requirements
- Laying the foundation: A viable basic solution for rapid deployment
- Mapping existing processes
- Integration into existing IT landscape
Phase 3: Migration & Go-Live
- Secure migration of the required project data
- Validation of data integrity
- Go Live & Support
Success Factors
cplace offers a holistic approach that takes into account processes, methods, organization, and systems, laying the foundation for future-proof, value-driven, and transparent project and portfolio management. In practice, an iterative approach to migration has proven effective, as big bang approaches tend to overwhelm organizations. As an adaptive solution platform, cplace also supports companies in their organizational transformation by allowing the individual building blocks to be easily adapted to new situations and levels of maturity.
Summary
In September 2026, the widely used and somewhat outdated PPM tool Project Online will be discontinued. Successful companies are using this opportunity to bring their project and portfolio management up to date. Adaptability is the most important feature that a future-proof solution must demonstrate. In this context, cplace presents itself as the ideal Project Online alternative, combining the flexibility of customized software with the power of a standard solution.
About the Author
Christian Schneider, Content Marketing, cplace
With its Next-Generation Project and Portfolio Management technology, cplace is revolutionizing and transforming the way people and organizations collaborate on complex projects. The flexible software platform enables leading companies to create customized solutions for digital transformation and developing complex products.
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