That is the whole answer, and the rest of this page is the detail behind it, because the question people actually mean when they ask it is usually one of three: is my data deleted or just locked away, what exactly counts as "my data" here, and how long have I really got.
Deleted, or locked away?
From a practical standpoint the distinction does not help you. Microsoft's published position is that the service and its data are no longer accessible after the date. Whether bytes linger on a server somewhere is not something you can act on, and there is no documented process for retrieving them once the service is gone.
It is worth being clear about why this feels surprising. Several recent Microsoft retirements have shipped with a wind-down: a read-only phase, an export window that stays open, or content moved into an archive tier you can still reach. This one has not announced any of those. Assuming a safety net that has not been published is the most expensive mistake available in this migration.
What counts as "my data"
Wider than most people expect, and this is where export plans come up short. There are two distinct bodies of content, and they need separate work.
| What it is | Where it lives | Covered by the project export? |
|---|---|---|
| Schedules, tasks, assignments, baselines | Project Online draft and published schemas | Yes, per user |
| Timesheets, resource plans, portfolio analyses, custom fields | Project Online feature data | Yes, per user |
| Project document libraries, risks, issues, deliverables, custom lists | SharePoint site collections (the PWA sites) | No |
| Project Home favourites and recently viewed | Per user, in-app only | No. Microsoft's own advice is to screenshot it |
How long have you really got?
Less than the calendar suggests, for two reasons.
The first is that Microsoft's export tooling is per user, not per tenant. The documented script takes one person's login name or resource ID and exports the projects that person owned or was assigned to. Covering a site collection means running it once for every user who held projects there, and a person's resource ID is different in every PWA site. On a tenant with a handful of PWA sites and a few dozen project owners that is a tracked list of runs, not an afternoon.
The second is that the export has prerequisites that take time to arrange: a Project Online Premium or Professional licence on the account doing the work, the Project Online Desktop Client installed and connected, and site collection administrator rights on each PWA site. If any of those needs a purchase, a ticket, or someone else's approval, that is your real deadline rather than 30 September.
Get-SPOSite on the PWAEnabled property.
PWA sites were frequently created by project managers without involving IT, so the count is
usually higher than anyone can name from memory, and it sizes everything else.
What about moving to a successor instead of exporting?
You still export first. There is no native automatic migration from Project Online to Planner with premium capabilities: the two use different architectures, Planner on Dataverse and Project Online on SharePoint, so projects are rebuilt rather than moved. Project Server Subscription Edition keeps the familiar Project Web App interface, but it runs on your own servers rather than in Microsoft's cloud.
Neither destination reaches back into a retired service to collect your history. Whichever way you go, the data has to come out first.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a read-only period after Project Online retires?
None has been published. Some Microsoft retirements offer a wind-down window and some do not, and the guidance for this one says access ends. Planning around a read-only period that has not been announced is the most expensive assumption available here.
Do the PWA SharePoint sites survive?
Do not plan on it. Every PWA instance is a SharePoint site collection, and the documents, risks, issues and custom lists inside are ordinary SharePoint content that the project export does not touch. Treat moving them as a separate task with the same deadline.
Can I move Project Online data straight into Planner Premium?
Not automatically. Microsoft states there is no native automatic migration path. The two run on different architectures, so projects are exported and rebuilt rather than moved.
Sources
- Export user data from Project Online, Microsoft Learn, for the export tooling, its per-user scope and its prerequisites.
- Microsoft Project Online is retiring: what you need to know, Microsoft Tech Community, for the retirement date and successor products.