How Microsoft Project Works with Project Management

Use Project Management integration with Microsoft Project to complete initial scheduling and what-if analysis in Microsoft Project before exporting the project plan to Project Management.

The integration of Microsoft Project versions 2016, 2019, or 2021 for desktop with Project Management application lets you schedule project plans, manage resource assignments, and track progress. It also supports components such as manual tasks, inactive tasks, free text, and primary baseline. You can export and synchronize milestones between Microsoft Project and Project Financial Management.

To set up Microsoft Project integration, you must install Microsoft Project Integration Client. After the setup is complete, you can import and export project plans.

Note:

Cloud-based versions and other desktop versions of Microsoft Project aren't supported.

Install Microsoft Project Integration Client

A project manager or project administrator can download and install the integration clients available for different versions of Microsoft Project to integrate with Project Management or Project Financial Management applications.

Note:

You can only have one integration client, either for Project Management or Project Financial Management applications, on your desktop. To switch between different clients, you must uninstall the existing client and install the other client.

To install Microsoft Project Integration client for Project Management:

If you have an existing version of Microsoft Project Integration with Project Management, you must uninstall that client version by selecting Uninstall from the Oracle Fusion Projects ribbon in Microsoft Project.
From the Navigator, open Project Management.
From the Manage Project Plan page or from the My Projects page, open the Actions panel tab and select Install Microsoft Project Integration to download the client. The minimum system configuration for Microsoft Project and other details appear. Make sure your configuration meets those requirements before proceeding with the install, including the required browser.
Save the client, extract the installation files to a local folder, and run setup from that folder.
After the Microsoft Project Integration client is installed successfully, open Microsoft Project.
From the Oracle Fusion Projects menu, select Change Environment and enter the URL for Oracle Fusion Applications.

You can change the environment URL at any time to support later server changes.

Import Task Codes into Microsoft Project

Use the Import List of Values menu option on the Oracle Fusion Projects menu to import values defined for task codes. Ensure that the task codes that you import don't match with any of the Microsoft Project column names. The following table lists the three task codes and the associated Microsoft Project fields.

Task Code	Associated Microsoft Project Fields
TASK_EXT_TEXT01	Text1
TASK_EXT_CODE01	OutlineCode1
TASK_EXT_NUM01	Number1

Use the View Attribute Mapping menu option to review how Project Management attributes map to Microsoft Project fields.

Import Projects

Import projects (but not work plan templates) from Project Management work area to create project files in Microsoft Project.

Caution:

It's important that the project calendars in Microsoft Project and Project Management are in sync before you export or import projects.

The following table describes how some important task-level attributes are imported or set. The project-level attributes such as status and project customer aren't imported into Microsoft Project.

Attribute	Description
Task attributes	Key imported attributes are: Task numbers (from the WBS column in Microsoft Project) Planned dates Percent complete and physical percent complete Total planned quantity. If calendar or scheduling settings differ, Microsoft Project recalculates effort or units to retain imported dates. Enterprise task codes are imported but project codes aren't imported. The task type for all imported tasks is set to Fixed Units in Microsoft Project.
Task constraints and dependencies	Project Management application doesn't support the constraint types As Late As Possible and As Soon As Possible. Other constraints are imported using the mapping described in the section on exporting project plan and scheduling information in this topic. If you assign start and finish dates to a task, then a Must Start On constraint is created for the task when you import the project into Microsoft Project.
Milestones	Tasks designated as milestone tasks are imported as milestones in Microsoft Project.
Schedule Type	When importing projects from the Project Management work area into Microsoft Project, the tasks will be created with the schedule type set in the Project Management work area, irrespective of the default task type set in Microsoft Project. So, a fixed duration project is imported as fixed duration tasks and fixed effort project is imported as fixed work tasks. The application always imports the summary tasks as fixed duration because they can't be imported as fixed work.

The following table describes how some important resource and resource assignment attributes are imported or set.

Attribute	Description
Resources	All labor and expense resources defined as project resources are imported.
Resource assignments	The following attributes are imported for resource assignments: Planned dates Planned, and remaining effort. The resources (task managers) that you assign to summary tasks are imported into Microsoft Project with zero allocation. Actual costs for labor resources and actual and planned costs for expense resources. The cost amounts are imported using the project currency. Import processing reports an error if Microsoft Project doesn't support the project currency.

Attribute

Description

Resources

All labor and expense resources defined as project resources are imported.

Resource assignments

The following attributes are imported for resource assignments:

Planned dates
Planned, and remaining effort. The resources (task managers) that you assign to summary tasks are imported into Microsoft Project with zero allocation.
Actual costs for labor resources and actual and planned costs for expense resources. The cost amounts are imported using the project currency. Import processing reports an error if Microsoft Project doesn't support the project currency.

Note:

While importing or exporting projects, if you use a screen reader application, ensure that the focus is on the Transfer Report to read the details of your project transfer.

Export Project Plan and Scheduling Information

Export your project plan to the Project Management work area after initial scheduling is complete in Microsoft Project and after you fix all errors identified during prevalidation.

Caution:

It's important that the project calendars in Microsoft Project and Project Management are in sync before you export or import projects.

The WBS column values from Microsoft Project are exported as task numbers to the Project Management work area. You can enter alpha numeric characters or use the auto-generated values for WBS in Microsoft Project.

Important attributes exported or recreated at the task level include task number (WBS), task name and dates, task codes, dependencies, constraints, and milestone indicators. A Microsoft Project task should have a contiguous assignment, because the Project Management application doesn't support split tasks. Scheduling in the Project Management application will use the original duration to calculate the dates.

The task date constraints are recreated in Project Management based on the mappings as listed in this table.

Microsoft Project Constraint Type	Project Management Constraint Type
As Late As Possible	No constraint created in Project Management
As Soon As Possible	No constraint created in Project Management
Finish No Earlier Than	Finish On or After
Finish No Later Than	Finish By
Must Finish On	Finish On
Must Start On	Start On
Start No Earlier Than	Start On or After
Start No Later Than	Start By

When exporting projects to the Project Management work area, Microsoft Project exports the tasks based on the conditions specified in this table.

Tasks	Condition
Inactive tasks	Doesn't export.
Manual tasks	Exports. If the manual task has invalid dates, such as text entries, Microsoft Project exports the dates and duration as blank.
Manual tasks with predecessor dependencies	Exports tasks without predecessor dependencies.
Summary tasks	Manual summary tasks must be converted to automatic summary tasks before exporting them from Microsoft Project into Project Management. If the dates are missing, Project Management automatically populates them.
Summary tasks with dependencies	Summary tasks support dependencies and can be successors or predecessors to any other tasks. Keep in mind that dependencies on summary tasks are applied to its highest-level child tasks that don't have constraints or dependencies.
Baseline	Exports the primary baseline, which is called Baseline, from Microsoft Project into Project Management work area. If the baseline called Baseline isn't available in Microsoft Project, the application exports the data corresponding to the latest saved baseline.
Schedule type	The tasks defaults to the schedule type selected during project export in the Export New Project window. Even if the project contains a mix of fixed duration, fixed units, and fixed work tasks, while exporting, they change into the schedule type selected. Note that the fixed work type in Microsoft Project corresponds to the fixed effort schedule type in the Project Management work area. The resource assignment dates aren't revised based on the task type in the Project Management work area until you explicitly roll up data or schedule tasks.
Milestones	When exporting milestone tasks, ensure that the tasks are lowest-levels tasks with zero duration, that is, the same start and finish dates.

Export Resource Assignments

Important attributes transferred or recreated at the resource assignment level when you export projects include the resource name, planned dates, and total planned work and remaining work. The task type of all exported tasks is set to Fixed Effort in Project Management work area, which corresponds to the Microsoft Project task type of Fixed Work. However, resource assignment dates aren't revised based on task type in Project Management work area until you explicitly roll up data or schedule tasks.

Resources, such as task managers, that you assign to summary tasks must have zero allocation. Otherwise, the prevalidation check reports an error.

Note:

The Peak value of a task resource assignment is exported when exporting the resource assignment from Microsoft Project to Project Management work area.

Export Resource Information

When exporting, only resources with task assignments are exported. The following table describes how resources are exported.

Project Management Resource Type	Microsoft Project Resource Type	Description
Labor	Work	Resources associated with resource assignments are linked to only existing project enterprise labor resources if the email or name exactly matches. Best practice is to include email addresses to differentiate resources with the same name. Export New Project won't create labor resources in Project Enterprise Resources.
Expense	Cost	Resources are linked to existing project enterprise resources if the names match. Export New Project won't create expense resources in Project Enterprise Resources.