Project Server 2016 Changes Resource Planning, APIs

Project Server 2016 brings new resource planning capabilities to help allocate resources and analyze their use and enhanced timeline features to help simplify presentation of project data to nonproject team members. However, the new features require the newest Project client, and longstanding integration features have been replaced with new API methods that will require application updates. Administrators will receive a simplified deployment process that should help maintain compatibility with the underlying SharePoint environment, but in-place upgrades are not supported. Since the roadmap for Project includes hybrid connections to Azure, some customers may find migrating to Project Online more appealing.

Functionality Improvements

Project Server 2016 arrived in May 2016 with the release of SharePoint Server 2016. (The Project family of products is discussed in the sidebar “Project Family Overview“.)

The release includes several functional improvements that may benefit customers; however, the new features require the Project Professional 2016 client, which has potential conflicts with older versions of Office.