With Dynamics 365 Project Operations in GA, Microsoft prepares transition plan for legacy users

With the new Dynamics 365 Project Operations offering, which became generally available on October 1, Microsoft promises to bring together the existing project-based capabilities of multiple Dynamics 365 products, tied in with Microsoft 365 services like Teams and Project for the web, and with the opportunities for partners to add their own industry-focused IP around it. But with the new solution's release, existing customers of earlier project management solutions will need to understand their existing licensing dates and prepare for a transition to a new product and the new licensing requirements.

Microsoft has designed Project Operations as a solution that can be used either in a standalone scenario or integrated with D365 Finance for invoicing, contracts, milestones, and actuals for time and materials projects. The base capabilities span deal management, project planning, resource management, time and expense, project costing, invoicing, and financials. Those broad capabilities reflect Microsoft's years-long effort to unify project-related capabilities in its CRM and ERP-focused applications, from Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation, which had its own scheduling engine, to the project management-related features of D365 Finance and Operations, which did not have a standard integration with PSA. 

The licensing of Project Operations will fit into the so-called "Dynamics 365 SKU placemat", the flattened list of applications that allows customer to pick and choose license combinations as they see fit. Project Operations joins the portfolio at a price of USD$120 per user per month as a base application and $30 as an attach application on top of another base app. 

The introduction of Project Operations also represents the beginning of an important transition for existing customers of products that will lose capabilities or that will be retired in the future.