01
Project templates
Templates for your recurring project types: discovery, implementation, maintenance, training. With predefined phases, tasks, approval points, and standard hour quotas.
Microsoft Cloud · Microsoft Dynamics 365
As your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations partner, we deliver resource allocation and clean billing from a single source — the two factors that decide margin in the project business. We configure time-and-material, fixed-price, and retainer models to fit the reality of your projects.
30 days free
We set up the trial tenant in 48 hours, train your key users (2 hours), hold weekly office hours with the architect, and prototype your target use case. After 30 days you receive an architecture recommendation — you decide on adoption or shutdown.
Capabilities
Six functional areas that make the difference in project business between reactive timesheet collection and steerable profitability.
Work breakdown structure, tasks, milestones, dependencies — as a Gantt view, Kanban, or list. Microsoft Project templates importable. Planned hours vs. actual hours in plan/actual comparison, automatically.
Resource pool with skills, utilization per person/team/quarter. Requests from the project manager to the resource manager with justification. Utilization dashboards for management — who is overbooked, who has capacity.
Weekly timesheets with project, task, and activity tagging. Expense capture with receipts, approval workflows. Mobile app on the go. Pitfall: time tracking is a discipline question — we also deliver reminder workflows.
Time and material, fixed price, retainer, mixed models. Billing proposals based on approved hours, automatic handover to accounting. Multi-tier approvals, multi-currency for international clients.
Pipeline from Sales as a project forecast, resource demand for the next two quarters, expected margin per project. Plan vs. actual comparison with realization — the leading indicator of whether a project is going off track.
External staff with their own timesheets, their own rates, their own billing models. Inbound subcontractor invoices are checked against hour approvals. Important for consultancies with a freelancer model.
Typical use cases
Three constellations from our practice where the implementation effort pays off in the first year.
Example: an 80-person IT consultancy with a mixed model of T&M, fixed price, and retainer. 30% subcontractor share, international clients with multi-currency, monthly collected invoices. Project Operations covers this without customization.
Example: an engineering office with 45 employees across four disciplines. Project phases with approvals, billable and non-billable hours, travel expenses with receipt requirement. Profitability analysis per project type and customer.
Example: a special-purpose machine builder with a project view for large orders. Linkage to order logic in the ERP, project phases, billing plan with down-payments and final payment. Here Project Operations complements the ERP without replacing it.
For pure fixed-price consulting without hour tracking or very small teams under 10 people, leaner tools like Awork, Harvest, or Toggl Track are more practical. Project Operations delivers its value from a certain complexity onwards — and from the moment the Excel zoo no longer holds up.
Deployment options — new names since October 2025
Microsoft renamed the two Project Operations deployment options in October 2025. If you're still reading old documentation or Microsoft Learn articles with the old names, here's the translation — and the logic for which variant fits which business model. Source: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide, May 2026 (Change Log).
| Edition (new) | Former name | For |
|---|---|---|
| Project Operations Core | Project Operations Lite (Deal-to-Proforma-Invoicing) |
Cloud variant for service and consulting companies that need simple project management up to the proforma invoice — without deep ERP integration. Faster implementation, easier configuration. The standard for IT consultancies, agencies, and engineering offices. |
| Project Operations Integrated with ERP | Project Operations for resource/non-stocked scenarios | Variant for manufacturers and complex resource-planning scenarios with integration to Finance and Supply Chain Management. More involved to implement, but mandatory when projects are interlocked with inventory, BOMs, or production-related dispatch — typical in special-purpose machine building, plant engineering, EPC business. |
Choosing the variant is an architectural decision, not a final license question. We take it at the start of discovery — picking wrong and switching mid-project is expensive.
Integration with the Field Service world
Microsoft updated the Field Service / Project Operations integration in February 2026. Via the Modern Project Operations integration, Field Service-licensed staff can transact against projects — without needing a separate Project Operations license. Source: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide, May 2026 (Change Log).
Practically, this becomes relevant when a Field Service team bills maintenance projects with material and hours capture against projects — typical in plant engineering and industrial maintenance.
Our approach
Four work packages we cleanly process in every Project Operations project — adapted to your billing models and your resource structure.
Templates for your recurring project types: discovery, implementation, maintenance, training. With predefined phases, tasks, approval points, and standard hour quotas.
Skill matrix, availability calendar, request workflows. Who can do what, who is available, who is overbooked — the steering view for resource managers and management.
Configuration of T&M, fixed price, retainer, and mixed models. Approval workflows per model, automatic invoice proposals to accounting. Multi-currency, VAT logic for DACH and the EU.
Profitability per project, resource utilization, forecast vs. actual, days sales outstanding. Built in Power BI, attached to Project Operations — management gets a real steering view across the project business.
Related solution
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations covers the standard project business very well. In two constellations we complement it with our own productized Project and Service Automation solution:
Which variant fits — pure Project Operations, arades PSA, or the combination — we clarify in the discovery call. We won't sell you an extra product if the standard is enough.
License costs & configuration
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations costs €117.00/user/month — both for Project Operations Core and Project Operations Integrated with ERP. Full users are project managers, resource managers, and controllers. Hour-only contributors without project maintenance can often work with a leaner license. Subcontractors and externals usually use the Team Members license for pure time entry. Source: microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics-365/products/project-operations/pricing — as of May 2026.
Which edition you concretely need depends on your billing complexity and degree of internationalization. Our License Cost Calculator calculates this — also for mixed teams of full users, hour contributors, and subcontractors.
Pricing notice: Microsoft adjusts list prices regularly (currency adjustments, NCE updates, plan restructurings). Figures here are indicative values from May 2026. For current prices including arades CSP conditions, see the License Cost Calculator (licenses.arades.de) ↗ daily.
Configuration note from practice: the biggest pitfall is the connection to accounting. Project Operations generates invoice proposals — who books them, in which system, with what account logic, is configuration work we do together with your accounting team.
arades alternative · for smaller setups
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations is powerful — but not the right tool for every setup. Our own Project & Service Management (P&SM) app is the leaner alternative on Dataverse, built specifically for IT service firms, consultancies, and smaller PSA setups.
Project Operations: from 20 users (Microsoft license minimum)
P&SM: from 1 user — fits setups with 5–50 consultants, not only at enterprise scale.
Project Operations: per-user license (on request)
P&SM: significantly less per user (on request). Plus: no Microsoft PO license needed — runs on the Power Apps Per User plan.
Project Operations: e-invoicing not included — additional license / integration required.
P&SM: E-Invoicing module included out-of-the-box (XRechnung, ZUGFeRD, PEPPOL).
License variants — who needs which license
| License role | Who this is | Price (list) |
|---|---|---|
| Project Operations (full user) | Project managers, resource planners, controllers, finance users — everyone who plans projects, assigns resources, releases invoices | EUR 117.00 / user / month |
| Project Operations Internal Project User | Internal staff who only book time and expenses on projects, without managing their own projects | approx. EUR 9 / user / month (attach logic when a full user exists) |
| Project Operations Project Resources / Subcontractor | Externals or subcontractors, time and expense entry on projects without project management | Team Member logic, approx. EUR 9 / user / month |
Indicative list prices — as of May 2026. We check the exact attach/bundle conditions in the License Cost Calculator. Source: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide, May 2026.
Training curriculum for Project Operations
A Project Operations rollout rarely fails on the technology — usually on adoption. Who uses which function for what is a matter of role. Our training modules are built along these roles.
WBS creation, task structures, milestone logic, status tracking, earned-value reports, risk logs. 2 days live + practice tenant.
Skill model, capacity views, resource requests, booking workflow, utilisation reports. 1 day live + schedule-board exercises.
Weekly time entry, expense workflows, mobile app usage, approval flows. 0.5 days live — usually as a short online session.
Project accounting, invoice proposals, WIP reports, period closing, interface to financial accounting (BC, F&O Finance). 1 day live + practice cases.
More on the training methodology and the adoption programme on the D365 training hub page. Cross-link to the arades Project & Service Management app if you are looking for a leaner PSA alternative.
Frequently asked questions
Standard setup for a 25-person consultancy with time-and-material billing starts at €38,000 net. With multi-currency, subcontractor management, forecast, and ERP integration, typical mid-market engagements range between €75,000 and €220,000. A more accurate estimate comes after the 30-min discovery call.
Lean implementation with project creation, time tracking, and simple billing: 10–14 weeks. With resource pools, subcontractor management, and forecast: 16–24 weeks. With full ERP integration and multi-currency: 24–36 weeks. We recommend a pilot with one business unit.
Yes. We have implemented migrations from Mavenlink, Kantata, Projectworks, Awork, Microsoft Project Server, Excel timesheets, and self-developed SharePoint solutions. Migrations from deeply integrated ERP modules like SAP PS are harder — we map master data but often don't bring over running projects; we let them run out instead.
IT and software consultancies, engineering firms, architecture and planning offices, marketing agencies with project billing, industrial service providers with special-purpose machine-building projects. Generally: project business with timesheets, resource allocation, and multi-tier billing.
Yes. Standard project templates, time-and-expense workflows, billing models (T&M, fixed price, retainer) are all available out of the box. Configuration is required for approval workflows, forecast models, and resource pools. Code-level customization is rarely needed.
Sales delivers opportunities and contracts from which projects are created. Customer Service attaches for service portions. Microsoft Teams for project collaboration, SharePoint for project documents, Power BI for profitability reports. On the ERP side, it integrates with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and with Business Central.
We have our own productized Project and Service Automation solution that sits on top of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and complements what Project Operations does not cover by default — for example combined service and project billing in one tenant or industry-specific templates for consultancies. We use one, the other, or both as needed.
Microsoft renamed the two deployment options in October 2025. Project Operations Core (formerly Project Operations Lite) is the cloud variant for service and consulting companies with a deal-to-proforma-invoicing scenario — without ERP integration, faster to introduce. Project Operations Integrated with ERP (formerly Project Operations for resource/non-stocked scenarios) is the variant for manufacturers and complex resource-planning scenarios, integrated with Finance and Supply Chain Management. Which one fits we clarify in discovery — switching mid-project is expensive. Source: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide, May 2026 (Change Log).
Microsoft updated the integration in February 2026. Via the Modern Project Operations integration, Field Service-licensed staff can transact against projects: Field Service work orders create or update projects, estimates, actuals, and material usages; inventory levels are read from Finance and Supply Chain Management. Important: this integration does not license the full Project Operations scope — direct access to Project Operations, Finance, or Supply Chain Management still requires its own licenses. Source: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide, May 2026 (Change Log).
60-min demo · your project business
Bring a typical project invoice. We'll show how Project Operations brings together hours, expenses, and fixed-price portions — step by step in the tool.
Accompanying services
Engineering projects rarely stand alone — license logic, architecture clarification, quality gates, knowledge transfer, and follow-up operations usually run in parallel. Here are the most common accompanying services we add via Discovery Spike, sprint fixed price, or Application Care contracts.
Before · Architecture
Before implementation begins: tenant structure, data model, security concept, integration mapping. The result is an architecture document any engineering team can build on — including one other than us.
Read more →
Before · CSP
Which license bundles for which users, which add-on SKUs are required, where you are over- or under-licensed. Sourced as a Microsoft Licensing Partner — with the option to use CSP purely as control without margin maximization.
Read more →
During · Quality gate
An independent second opinion during a running implementation project — whether we run it ourselves or another partner does. CMMI-based quality gates, risk reviews, fixed price per gate.
During · Adoption
Not the classic two-day workshop that's forgotten a week later — but a dynamic learning program over 4–6 weeks with initial training, application phases, and follow-up sessions. Training matrix across roles and topics.
Read more →
After · Operations
After go-live: a predictable Application Care contract with a monthly flat fee, SLA-based. Includes releases, hotfixes, enhancements, tenant hardening — and continuous guidance rather than ticket-only response.
Read more →
After · Knowledge
When the original developers are gone, the predecessor partner is no longer reachable, or documentation is outdated — reverse engineering of the existing solution with a documented result: code map, data model, customization inventory.
Read more →
More on Microsoft CRM? Find the full overview of the Dynamics 365 CRM family in our Insights area — knowledge content, not a sales pitch. To the CRM knowledge area →
Strategy background · arades topic page
Why we consistently build all our apps and recommendations on a single data foundation — and when the isolated solution is still the better answer. 2,500 words on architecture, migration paths, and honest boundaries.
Read the topic page →