Just got Project Roadmap enabled/deployed at my Microsoft 365 tenant, so let’s explore together…
What is Project Roadmap?
On September 24th at Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft announced a new feature for Microsoft Project called Roadmap.
Roadmap is a visually exciting way to combine information from multiple Waterfall and Agile projects and share it with co-workers. Microsoft
Roadmaps are available directly on the new Project Home page that was released into production last year.
Let’s take a quick tour in the new Project Roadmap together.
How to activate Project Roadmap for your organization
Access your Microsoft 365 Admin Center
Click on Settings > Services and add-ins
Find Project Online and click on it
Check the box saying: Turn Roadmap on for your organization
There is a note below: Before enabling or disabling Roadmap in your organization, please review this article for planning considerations.
or click here: Turn Roadmap on or off for your organization
Save your changes
Done!
Now that you have activated Project Roadmaps, let’s take a look.
How to access Project Roadmap
You can access Project Roadmap from the new Project Home page.
Access your Project Home or click here: https://project.microsoft.com/
Click on Create New > Roadmap
You are now inside a new roadmap. Quite fast and smooth experience, I have to admit! Well done Microsoft…
It is just a blank canvas at first, so let’s populate it!
How to add a new row / project
Click on Add a row to start adding rows or projects
Type a name or title for your row
Select the owner (optional)
Click on Connect to a project
Select the type of project you want to connect with:
Project Online
Azure Boards
I’m sure Microsoft will be adding other types of projects in near future
Now type your Project Web App or PWA URL and select a project
Start typing the name of the project to search
After selecting your project, a super awesome thing will happen!
You will see that Project Roadmap is creating a LIVE connection with this project using Microsoft Flow.
Sign in to the required connections:
Project Roadmap
Project Online
Click on Connect
How to add items to your row
Let’s add some items to our connected row/project
Type the name of the task to search inside your project in Project Online
You can also add Summary tasks and Milestones
Click on Add
You have now added and connected your first project into Roadmaps!
Easy and intuitive experience…
How to update your row items
When you add a row, that row is connected to a project, if the project changes, your row items will change: automatically.
But you can set a status only for your roadmap visualization. This procedure will not impact the project the real project.
Just click on the row item and select the status your want:
Not set (blue) (no icon)
On Track (green) (dot)
At risk (yellow/amber) (hiphen)
High risk (red) (exclamation mark)
Done (white) (check mark)
How to update or navigate to your actual project
Since your rows are live connections to actual projects, you can navigate to them for extra details or even make changes.
Select the row/project name
Click on Details button in the command bar in the top
Click on the Project Name under Connection to navigate to the actual project
Click on Update to update your roadmap with the latest information from the actual project
How to add members or edit your roadmap
A roadmap is part of our beloved Office 365 Groups. Learn more here.
Click on Members in the top-right corner
Add your members by searching for their names or accounts
Update the group Name or Description
Update the group Privacy
Behind the roadmap there is an Office 365 Group, like I mentioned before. They are amazing and definitely the ultimate collaboration platform for every team!
They are unified groups that boost your team’s productivity and provide a suit of services all connected.
We are using Office 365 Groups also for our Connected Project Sites in Project Online.
How to add a key date
very
After adding your key dates, they will look like below:
How to filter my roadmap
you can filter your roadmap by clicking on Filter in the command bar
How to add a row connected to an Azure Board
Very simple! Just follow the same steps before to add a row, but now select Azure Board
How to add items to my row connected to an Azure Board
Add your Azure DevOps items by searching by their title or name.
How to navigate to my actual Azure Board
You can also navigate to the actual board, exactly in the same way I showed before
So, that is it!!! I hope you enjoyed this post… Let me know how you are using your new Project Roadmaps in the comments below.
Training materials about Project Roadmaps
You can find a lot of material about the Project Roadmaps in the links below:
