How to synchronize Microsoft Project file with SharePoint task list

This post will show you how you can synchronize tasks from your Microsoft Project planning with SharePoint. This is typically addressed to users/companies that do not want to invest in the full version of Project server, but can share task list and project information with some stakeholders.

Create a Microsoft Project simple project
Here is a very simple project that contains 2 summary tasks with 3 subtasks for each of them.

Create a task list in SharePoint

Open your SharePoint site, go on view all site content and click on Create.

Create a list from type “Project Tasks”

Note that you can also use simple task list, there are small differences in term of views provided.

Synchronize Project tasks to SharePoint

On Microsoft Project, click on the File tab, select Save & Send then click on Sync with Tasks List.
Type site URL, and select your list.

Click on Sync.

The following warning message will pop up. This is one of the limitations of the standard Microsoft Project to SharePoint synchronization. Only Manually Scheduled tasks can be sync. Microsoft Project will convert all your tasks from Auto Scheduled to Manually Scheduled.

Open your SharePoint list and check synchronization

Summary tasks are supported and displayed.

If you click on one of the summary tasks, you will find all sub tasks.

2-way synchronization

Make a change on SharePoint, for e.g. update task % complete for task 1.1 to 100%

On the other hand, create a new task in Microsoft Project (New task 1.3)

Run synchronization, and check update in SharePoint/Microsoft Project.

Available view in SharePoint
We already saw the default Gantt view; you can also create a calendar view.

Receive update notification
There is a standard feature in any SharePoint list or document library that allow user to be notified of any changes that occurs on any item of a list.
To subscribe to notification, open List option and click on Alert Me. You will then have to select the frequency of notification and the type of modification to be reported.

Synchronization issue

You can face some synchronization issues; the first type of issue is the conflict. The same item has been modified both in SharePoint and Microsoft Project. In this example the %complete has been modified in both sides with different values. The synchronization process pops up the conflict resolution windows to help you resolving this issue.

Another synchronization issue is related to resource assignment. SharePoint can only synchronize resources that exist within its environment. In this example the user named “Test User 1” is assigned to a task in Microsoft Project but as it does not exist in SharePoint the synchronization cannot be done. The resource assigned to this task is removed in SharePoint.

Manipulate Custom Fields
You can create custom fields in Microsoft Project and synchronized them into SharePoint. In the following example, I have created a text column called “Location” and assign some values.

In Microsoft Project, select the File tab, and then click on Manage Fields.

Select the Text1 (Location) project field. The corresponding column in the SharePoint list will then be created upon next synchronization.

Modify the SharePoint List view to display the new field. Location is now displayed and synchronized.

Restrictions

Here are the restrictions of such synchronization process:

• Only works with SharePoint Foundation or SharePoint Server 2010
• Only works with Project Professional
• Only works when Project Professional is not connected to Project Server
• Synchronized tasks become Manually Scheduled tasks (cannot keep Auto Scheduled)

Comparison between this method and Project Server

	Project Synch	Project server
Synchronization	2-way	2-way
Tasks	Yes	Yes
Task work	Yes	Yes
Project meta data	Task fields	Yes
Resource assignment	Yes	Yes
Work	No	Yes
Portfolio/program level rollup	No	Yes
Field mappings	Task only	Project, Task, Resource
Task modes	Manual only	Auto or Manual
List mapping	Yes	No
Projects per site	Single	Multi