Importing and exporting plans with Microsoft Project

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The import and export feature allows the integration of project planning and tracking information between IBM® Engineering Workflow Management (EWM) and Microsoft Project. You can import a Microsoft Project XML file to a plan in EWM. In addition, you can export a EWM plan to an XML file that can then be opened in Microsoft Project.

Supported version: Microsoft Project versions 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2021 are supported for import and export.

Note: Microsoft Project 2021 is supported only on 7.0.2 iFix015 and later.

To import a plan, save the Microsoft Project file as an XML file and import the XML file. When you export a plan, an XML file is generated that you can open in Microsoft Project. Only the functions and attributes of Microsoft Project that are supported by your plan are imported or exported.

Import and export mapping

Mapping replaces a task type or resource from Microsoft Project with a supported work item type or resource in your target project. When you import a project plan, you can map the task types from Microsoft Project to the work item types in your project.

When you map task types, the attributes of task types in Microsoft Project are replaced with the attributes of the supported work item types in your target project. For example, you might map a task of type Summary Task from Microsoft Project to a Task work item type in your project.

Table 1 illustrates how the resources and attributes of Microsoft Project map to the resources and attributes of your application.

Table 1. Mapped resources after import
Microsoft Project Plan Your existing plan
User Contributor
Summary Task Any work item type
Task Any work item type
Task Assignment The mapped user is assigned as the owner of the work item.
Project Plan
Dependency Each Finish-to-Start dependency is imported and mapped to a predecessor-successor relationship.
Constraints If you are using the Formal Project Management process, the As soon as possible, Start no earlier than, and Finish no later than constraints are imported and mapped to the same constraints. For the Start no earlier than and Finish no later than constraints, the constraint dates are also imported. Other constraints are not imported or mapped. In processes where no constraints are defined, such as Scrum, constraints are not imported or mapped.
The following resources in the Microsoft Project plan are not imported:
  • Project and user calendar
  • User rate
  • Schedule
  • Dependency other than Finish-to-Start
  • Constraints other than As soon as possible, Start no earlier than, and Finish no later than

Constraints and dependencies

The import and export capabilities in your application support the Finish-to-Start dependency among tasks in Microsoft Project. The remaining dependencies in Microsoft Project are not imported. Similarly, the import and export capabilities support only the As soon as possible, Finish no later than, and Start no earlier than constraints. The remaining constraints in Microsoft Project are not imported.

If constraints and dependencies exist in the import file, they are imported along with the constraint dates, if any. The constraints, constraint dates, and dependencies are then mapped to the compatible constraints and dependencies that are defined in your process template. If your process template does not contain dependencies or constraints, or if a compatible dependency or constraint is not found, the constraints and dependencies are not imported.
Note: For agile plans, instead of constraints and dependencies, a sequence number is calculated and assigned to the work item. This sequence number determines the order of the work items in the project plan.

Task with multiple assignments

A task that has multiple assignments in Microsoft Project is imported into your project as a parent Summary Task and child tasks. For example, a task in Microsoft Project is assigned to Resource1, Resource2, and Resource3. When the task is imported to the target project, a Summary Task that is named T1 is created with three child tasks: T1_Task1, T1_Task2, and T1_Task3. As a result, Resource1 is assigned to T1_Task1, Resource2 is assigned to T2_Task2, and Resource3 is assigned to T1_Task3.

Table 2. Mapped resources after export
Your existing plan Microsoft Project Plan
Project and iteration plans Project
Contributor User
Leaf work - items Task
Non-leaf work - items Summary Task
Dependency and Constraints Dependency and Constraints
Assignment Assignment